“Why would she hold them back? Shouldn’t I know what Vertie had to say? She was my grandmother!” I was growing angrier by the second, at Reed for keeping my property from me and denying me one last connection with Vertie, and at Anne. She had the answers to the ever-expanding puzzle of Sugar Hill, but she died with all her secrets and left me to interpret Grandmother Margaret’s mad ramblings by myself. And did I really have a choice? I woke up with this ring on my finger. A ring that wouldn’t come off.
I halfheartedly tugged at the ring, but of course it didn’t budge. “What about this ring, Mitchell? Why can’t I take it off? What does it really mean? Reed tried to tell me it signified that the Matrone was ‘married’ to the family, but that’s just bull crap, isn’t it?” I was on my feet now. The cordial tea party was forgotten, and I was ready to go to battle—I just wasn’t sure with whom. Surely not with Mitchell and his sad puppy-dog eyes.
“Come on, Avery. Let’s go for a walk.” He rose from the striped settee, and I realized he almost had to duck to move around these rooms. The cottage had such low ceilings compared to the big airy spaces of Sugar Hill.
“A walk?”
“In Aunt Anne’s gardens. I’ll show you the hothouse. Grab your jacket, though; it’s chilly in the back.”
We walked along a brick pathway and enjoyed the cool weather in silence. Like any good reporter, I allowed him to lead the conversation, when he finally spoke. “Currently there are three major branches in our family. There are Vertie’s children, Asner’s children and Anne’s. Summer and I are Asner’s grandchildren.”
“Wait. Vertie had only one child, Andrew, my father. Right?”
He glanced at me sadly and didn’t speak again until we arrived at the hothouse. I couldn’t wait to read Vertie’s journals now.
“I see.” I swallowed at the thought of another family secret to uncover. “And who are Anne’s grandchildren?”
“Reed, Pierce and our two cousins, Meredith and Marguerite. But they died a very long time ago.”
“But I thought Reed was Asner’s child. How did I get that wrong? He’s always calling her Aunt Anne. I just assumed…”
“She adopted him, but he is a Dufresne. That’s another story for another time.”
I couldn’t believe it. I assumed Mitchell had a reason for telling me all this, but darned if I knew what that was.
He swung open the door to the massive hothouse, and the warmth immediately cheered me. He was right, the backyard was very chilly.
“Because you say you want to know what’s going on, that’s how you learn. You have to know who is married to whom. You have to know whose blood flows in your veins. And whose doesn’t. You don’t have anything if you don’t have the right…alliance.”
We shed our jackets, and he hung them on a wooden rack. Then he slid his hands into some tight gloves and handed me a pair. The gloves must have belonged to Miss Anne. Who else would have been out here? The gloves were cotton with a pretty floral pattern, and the fingers were slightly soiled. The smell of clean dirt comforted me, and I accepted a potted plant from him. He pointed at a small shovel and an empty row of dirt in a raised flowerbed. He had dozens of square flowerbeds in the hothouse. These were raised high off the ground, making it easier for him to tend to his floral patients. I watched as he popped the plant out of the pot and dug a hole in the soil. With careful fingers he loosened the roots and set the plant into the newly dug hole. He patted a mound of dirt around it and sprinkled it with water from a nearby copper watering can.
With a smile he said, “Now, she has everything she needs to live.” He handed me a plant and observed me as I did the same thing. My plant rested in the soil next to his, but I still didn’t get it. “Those two plants look exactly the same, don’t they?”
“Yeah, I guess so.” Was this a horticulture quiz? If he expected me to have any knowledge about plants or growing anything, he was sorely mistaken. I smiled, eager to carry on our conversation.
“They are very similar. They come from the same root stock, but the offshoots are noticeably different. If you look closely at those two garden boxes, you’ll see the differences pretty clearly. For instance, this root stock produces red flowers, and those produce pink and white flowers. If you mix up the cuttings before you plant them, if you don’t watch what you’re doing, you’ll have to take a chance on what you end up with. You can’t be sure what you have until well after the planting, after the flowers begin to bloom.” He watched me patiently.
“Avery, we Dufresnes, all of us, come from the same root stock, but there are offshoots that grow wild in our family tree. And these wild roots would destroy us, if we allowed them to grow for too long or too deeply.”
“Doesn’t every family tree have those, Mitchell? There’s no way an old family like ours doesn’t have secrets and ‘wild offshoots.’ What are you trying to tell me? Are we inbred? Do we have Yankee forefathers? Do we have a pirate lineage?” I laughed dryly, but apparently he didn’t like my attempts at humor. “Please cut to the chase.”
He didn’t, though. He was committed to leading me to whatever understanding he hoped I would achieve. “These wild offshoots are pure stock, more like weeds. They aren’t as hearty; they don’t hold up to the heat. Did you know that weeds strangle flowers?”
I peeled off the gloves and tossed them in the box. “No, I can’t say that I did know that.”
“If you saw the videos, you know this already—the battle of the bloodlines continues, Avery. The wild offshoots are at it again. The conflict has never let up. You know about Athena and Susanna, Ambrose and Chase?”
“Yes, I know. So? Chase had two wives. Two cousins fought over Susanna—an unfortunate girl who had few prospects other than to marry a white man. That’s the big story? That wasn’t uncommon for the time. It’s historical fact.”
“No, that’s not the big story.” Mitchell peeled off his gloves too, his patience with me finally fading. “Which blood calls to you, Avery? Because the battle isn’t just a bit of family history for you. It’s a reality. The battle continues—the one that began almost two hundred years ago. The question now is which blood calls to you, Avery?”
“I don’t get this at all. Are you talking about DNA? Blood types?”
“Well, in modern terms, yes. But I’m not sure that has anything to do with it, really. I think the blood differences are more subtle. Although Aunt Anne would disagree with me.”
“Am I supposed to take a test? And if I did, what would that prove?”
“I don’t know. That you have old blood? I’m going to tell you what I know, but that’s not much. Not really.”
“Please do. Because if I don’t get answers soon, I’m getting in my car and heading north until I run out of gas. I can’t deal with ghosts and the supernatural, and currently there is an abundance of both. There, I said it! I’m seeing ghosts and dreaming about them! Does that make me certifiable? Am I the wild offshoot you were talking about?” I sat down on a wooden bench, uncaring that I plopped down in a pile of dirt.
“Oh no, Avery. That’s not what I meant. Aunt Anne always said I was horrible at explaining things. That’s not what I meant.” I couldn’t help but cry. Mitchell sat beside me and let me lay my head on his shoulder until I got it together. In a whisper he said, “Tell me more about the spirits. What are you seeing?”
“There are spirits at Sugar Hill—and Thorn Hill. I’ve seen Ms. Roberts, and Susanna and even Ambrose. The portrait of Chase keeps changing, but he’s always staring at me. Why? How am I expected to deal with this? What do they want, and how do I make it stop?”
He sighed sadly. “I wish I had an answer, for you and for Summer. I think she believes I plotted against her, but it wasn’t like that. Poor Summer. My sister wanted to be the Matrone so badly, but it could never be. She was instantly disqualified once Miss Anne knew whose blood ran strongest in her.”
“Why would that matter? That seems very cruel. Summer would have been a good Matrone.”
His voice dropped down to a whisper, and he seemed very uncomfortable. “Hardly. She would have done the Lovely Man’s bidding. It was inevitable. Up until now, the women in our family have managed to keep the spirit at bay, most of them. But the spirit’s strength increases with every new Matrone. And he…the one I spoke of…he wants his lost Susanna. He wants her and will never stop searching for her. Even in death he hasn’t ceased his search.”
“I don’t believe any of it, Mitchell! Surely this is family legend. Just gossip—just rumors.”
“Are you saying that you haven’t had the dream? The dream of kissing Ambrose? Summer did. She bragged about it, she told Vertie. I heard her confess it.” He shook his head in disgust and kept on, “The Lovely Man is what they call him when they don’t want to say his name. If you say his name, and you belong to him, he is bound to come if you call, especially if you wear the ring.”
“But I don’t have his blood, from what you say. What if I did not dream about Ambrose? What if it was Chase I dreamed of? Or somebody else.”
“Tell me exactly what you dreamed, Avery. Don’t leave anything out.”
I rubbed my dirty hands on my blue jeans. I could hardly believe I was going to tell him this, but I was. And why? Did I believe any of this? I wasn’t sure yet, but I said I wanted answers.
Maybe it was finally time to hear the truth.
Chapter Fourteen
Avery Dufresne
“It happened last night. The My Haunted Plantation crew encountered a problem during their investigation of the basement. One of the investigators, Jessica, claimed she saw two ghosts in the basement, including the ghost of Regina Dufresne. Jessica says Regina had been walled up in the basement. After the incident was over, she couldn’t remember anything, but they have it all on film. Obviously we couldn’t let them continue, so they are poking around other properties today. The Ramparts, I think. Right now, probably as we speak, Reed has his friend from the university searching for anomalies in the walls.”
“I see,” Mitchell said as he stood, dusting off his clothes.
“I decided not to return to Thorn Hill. I went to my bedroom at Sugar Hill, but something strange happened. Well, actually, the strangeness began before I arrived. I rode over from Thorn Hill with Jamie. You remember, Jamie, my detective friend? He was always so level-headed. Well, he began telling me about this déjà vu he’d been having. How he thought he’d been here before, at Sugar Hill and Thorn Hill, how he could not remember parts of his childhood until he met me. He lived here, in Belle Fontaine. Can you believe that?”
“Surprising.”
“Yes, and he wasn’t himself. He pulled the car over and began telling me he loved me and that he had lived here before, that he knew me before.” Mitchell’s eyes widened at the details, but he kept quiet. I continued rambling on, trying to get it all out.
“We got the call about Jessica’s paranormal episode and came back to Sugar Hill to see what happened. Later that night, Reed kissed me. Not just a friendly kiss. He kissed me! I went upstairs to my room and locked the door. I fell asleep and dreamed…dreamed about kissing him.” I couldn’t look Mitchell in the eyes. “But it wasn’t him, it was Jamie. And if that’s not bad enough, then I was kissing Ambrose, and then Chase.”
“Go on.” Mitchell’s facial expression did not reveal what he thought about me. “Keep going, Avery.”
“I think…I think I was Susanna because it was Chase I wanted, Chase I wanted with all my heart and soul. I saw her. She told me that there was no escape from Ambrose, that he was my soul mate. What kind of nightmare was that?”
“Not a nightmare, Avery. You were there.”
“Well, to make matters worse, I woke up with Jamie in my bed. He was sleeping, and we were both naked. I am pretty sure we had sex, but it must have been during the dream. I don’t know what to make of all this. I am so freaked out that I don’t know what to do!” This would have been a good place to start crying again, but I didn’t. I was too wound up from uncovering the truth.
“Don’t beat yourself up over it. It was bound to happen sooner or later. It always does.”
“What does it mean, Mitchell?”
“You have to finish the videos, Avery. Don’t let the supernatural activity distract you. Keep watching. You’ll find out what you want to know. Ask Reed about Vertie’s journals. Demand that he give them to you—today. Then lock yourself away and watch and read until you know it all. Only then will you fully understand what is at stake here.”
“You can’t just tell me? Don’t pretend you don’t know what’s happening around the house.”
“There is a war going on, Avery. It was going on long before you got here, and unless you can end it, it will go on after you have gone. It must come to an end. At last. Aunt Anne wanted to be the one to finish it, but she wasn’t strong enough. But you can. You are strong, Avery. You can do it.”
Excited that I was beginning to understand at least a little bit, I said, “Tell me more about the war, Mitchell. How do I win it? Who is fighting it?”
“It is for the soul of the family, the soul of the Matrone. That ring you wear is the symbol of a promise made long ago. A promise to love and cherish, in sickness and in health, but that promise was cursed and a new spell was cast upon that ring. The spell bound the wearer to her soul mate for all eternity.”
“So what belonged to Chase now belongs to Ambrose? Because of this ring?”
“It’s more complicated than that, I think, Avery.”
“I don’t know if I believe this about a soul mate. I thought that was a phrase teenagers used.”
“Oh, it’s more than a phrase.” His voice sank even lower. I could barely hear him now. “Soul mates aren’t always star-crossed lovers. What if your soul mate was, in this current lifetime, someone you were repulsed by? What then? Would you still want to be bound to him?”
“Am I bound to some soul mate that I don’t know? How can that be? Help me get this thing off!” I tugged at the ring desperately.
“You can’t. It won’t let you. Others have tried.”
“Tell me who it is I am bound to, Mitchell. Is it Ambrose or Chase? Or someone else?”
I heard footsteps in the leaves outside the hothouse. Apparently so did Mitchell. He froze and looked at the door. Whoever it was didn’t come in.
In a whisper he said, “That’s for you to figure out, Avery. You could turn your back on it all, like Aunt Anne did for a time. She married a man she loved, had children. But in the end, the call home was too great, and she came back to Belle Fontaine and into the arms of danger. Her husband died only a month later. Then her two daughters were found drowned. It was a terrible time for everyone.”
“You are too young to remember that, I am sure.”
“Not as young as I once was.” He smiled wryly.
“Why me?”
He didn’t answer but squeezed my hand quickly. He stared at the door again, but still no one entered.
I decided it was time to go. I’d put him in an awkward position already. Now we were being spied upon. I couldn’t stay here in the hothouse all day. I had to retrieve Vertie’s journals. I had to know what her thoughts were on the matter. I needed to hear her in order to know how to move forward.
“Thank you, Mitchell. I hope that someday you will take me up on that offer and come spend some time with me at Sugar Hill.”
He smiled and murmured goodbye. I flung open the hothouse door to bust whoever was hanging around out there, but I saw nothing. No stirring of the leaves, not a living soul. I glanced over my shoulder, but Mitchell was already sliding his gloves back on. I walked back to the house by myself. Feeling determined to get to the bottom of the family mysteries, I grabbed my keys off the side table and walked to the front door. I closed the cottage door behind me and got in my car.
I didn’t have to wonder where to go next. I headed straight for D & D, where I knew Reed would be. No sense in waiting until later.
If Mitch
ell couldn’t tell me the truth, I’d have to find it out myself. After all, I had once been America’s Newscaster.
If I couldn’t uncover the meaning of all this, who could?
Chapter Fifteen
Jessica Chesterfield
I felt fine today. I had my energy back and was excited about exploring the woods near the Ramparts. Imagine, someone burned the settlement down to the ground and they’d never rebuilt the place. But then again, why would you want to rebuild on cursed land? I shivered at the thought.
Honestly, I had no idea if this land was cursed or not, and I decided right then and there I would keep a level head. No guesses. I tapped my lip with my finger as I flipped through the photos I’d taken of interesting spots in the woods.
But if I were to go with my feelings on this place, I’d have to say it felt cursed. The dead grass and the acidic-looking sandy soil were proof that nothing grew here. Nothing at all. According to Megan’s research, over a hundred people died the night the Ramparts burned down. Many were slaves who’d been confined to what essentially were jail cells. Those unfortunate souls didn’t stand a chance when the fire swept through the dry wooden buildings, and they weren’t the first slated for rescue. The fire moved quickly, spreading so fast that no number of buckets of water would have made a difference, even if the slaves had been accorded some compassion.
Shanty houses and larger residences along the main avenue burned to the ground first. There was no specific list of names, but we easily found enough evidence to know that this terrible tragedy really had occurred. There were supposedly two cemeteries nearby that attested to that fact. Thankfully for us, Reed Dufresne wasn’t arguing this point. We found pieces of charred wood, stone foundations and the odd artifact here and there, including some old buttons and broken glass. I held them in the hopes that I would experience some kind of energy, but I felt nothing.
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