Only the locked drawer remained unchanged. Barrie rattled it as she sat at the desk to make her call, and while the phone rang on Mark’s end, she pulled open the top center drawer to search for keys. Then she closed it, realizing Pru could come in any second. Neither of them could take any more surprises. She pulled the phone with her and settled into one of the armchairs by the window. Mark’s voice came through the receiver along with a burst of noise and music.
“I can barely hear you, Mark! Are you watching Veronica Mars again?”
“Hold on!” Mark shouted back. “I’ll go out into the hall. I’m having a decorating party with the nearly-dead-and-departeds at the hospice. Turns out they’re all fabulous! Say hello to my Barrie, everyone!”
“Hello, Barrie!” The greeting came in a chorus of voices, bass to baritone, and then the sound of music and chatter died away. “Is that better?” Mark asked.
“Much. It’s wonderful to hear you having fun. And you sound better. Are you feeling better?”
“B, you know I won’t get—”
“What are we decorating?” Barrie interjected. “Don’t tell me you finally got tired of bordello-Gothic?”
“I’m going for a whole new look: red silk and zebra print. I found pillows and the cutest throw rug.”
“Wow, that is different. Nothing like your polar bear rug.”
Mark’s room had always looked like the Moulin Rouge had thrown up, pink and black satin, a throwback to his drag show days when he’d been going to be the next RuPaul, the next José Sarria. BTF, as Mark always called it. Before the Fire.
“Send me a picture when you’re finished,” Barrie said, “and I want a group pic with everyone there. No, wait. Damn. I still don’t have my phone, and there’s no Internet.”
Mark coughed again, a rattling cough. Was he crying?
“So you’ll never guess what I ate this morning,” she announced. “Shrimp and grits.”
“Shrimp for breakfast?” Mark asked damply. “That sounds hideous.”
“I’m sure there’s a place where you can order it too. You’re eating, aren’t you?”
“Yes, Mother.”
Barrie pulled her legs up and curled them underneath her on the chair. Her throat turned raw and tight. She listened to the wet, labored sound of Mark’s breathing while she sorted through everything she wanted to tell him. It came down to: “Thank you, by the way.”
“For what?”
“For being my mother. For putting your life on hold to raise me. For putting up with Lula’s baggage so that you could stay.”
Silence swept down the phone line, and then Mark cleared his throat. “You know, I was looking out my window at the bay earlier, and telling myself that some of the water flowing in the river outside your window will end up here. Drops of there coming here. Drops of here going there.”
“In a million years maybe.”
“You’re always too literal, B. Who says time moves in a line? Could be it’s all mixed up like the water. Like souls and karma. Could be a million years is only five minutes from now, and it won’t be long before I see you. Oh, damn. Now I’m making my mascara run. Quick, go grab a Kleenex.”
“Why?” Barrie wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “I’m not the one wearing mascara.”
“Then how do you expect to hook that hottie of yours, baby girl? Mascara is a girl’s best friend. Right up there with a great pair of shoes. What do I keep telling you?”
“Many things, and I ignore most of them. Also, the hottie is strictly catch and release. In a couple months, he’s going to school out in California.”
Mark’s fingernail tapped the phone, two, three, four, five times. He always tapped when he was thinking. “So you like him then. A lot.”
“A little,” Barrie insisted.
“Then forget what I told you about not falling for him. You go after him, baby girl. Have a fling. Everyone should have a fling. You’ll probably be sick of him anyway by the time he reaches his expiration date.”
His expiration date.
As if Eight were a carton of milk that would sour at the end of summer. Everyone in Barrie’s life seemed to have an expiration date. She sighed and couldn’t think of a thing to say.
The silence grew until Mark broke it: “Speaking of time, did you get the package I sent you? I expected you would call me.”
“Package?” Barrie wrapped the phone cord around her fingers. “I’m sorry. Pru probably has it. It’s been hectic around here.”
“Oh . . . Well, call the minute you get it. In fact, call me before you open it.”
“I will.” Barrie tried to inject some enthusiasm back into her voice. Compared to everything else, Lula’s shoes, or whatever Mark had put in the package, didn’t seem important. Still, he had made the effort.
She hated to leave him disappointed. After she’d hung up, she stood with her hand on the receiver and tried to think of a funny moment she could call him back to share, some story that wouldn’t worry him or make her bring up Eight again. But Eight was the only lightness she had found since she’d arrived. Being with him was the only time she’d laughed.
Upstairs, the air was hot and stifling. She flung open the doors to the balcony and dropped into the armchair to pull off her shoes. The chair pitched forward, tipping Barrie out. She stumbled to her feet.
One of the legs had fallen off. Not broken. Not sheered. Unscrewed.
She had been kidding—or half-kidding—when she’d said the house was out to get her.
“What did I ever do to you?” She stooped to pick up the leg so she could reattach it, and she shook it at the ceiling, realizing only halfway through the motion that she was shouting at the house the same way Pru had shouted at it, back when she’d thought Pru was crazy. And what was the deal, anyway? If the Fire Carrier had made a bargain with Thomas Watson, why wasn’t he keeping it? He was supposed to make the yunwi behave. Did voodoo wear off? Was that the problem? Because she had no intention of trying to find a voodoo priest. That would be a conversation to have with Pru.
Barrie tried to tell herself she was being silly as she showered and dressed. She didn’t bother to dry her hair, but the grandfather clock was already chiming eight o’clock when she knocked on Pru’s door at the end of the hallway.
But Pru didn’t answer, and there was no sound of movement from inside. Barrie was just thinking that Pru had to be really upset to have stayed up in the attic all this time, although she could have just gone straight down to the kitchen.
The doorbell rang. Eight was right on time. Why didn’t that surprise her? Barrie couldn’t drum up any annoyance, though. Her heart gave a glad little thud and then sped up to near-panic speed when Pru’s voice floated down from the attic, the words too far away to be distinct. What if Pru had changed her mind about letting her go to Cassie’s? About going there with Eight?
Maybe she shouldn’t go. Maybe she should stay with Pru.
Yet the idea of not seeing Eight, of not keeping her promise to her cousin . . .
She ran toward the stairs, shouting, “I’m leaving, Aunt Pru,” as she went.
Eight had let himself in by the time Barrie neared the landing. He stood at the bottom of the steps in red shorts and a clean, white shirt, looking so alive, it made Barrie’s blood rush and her breath catch as if she’d been slapped awake.
Mark had been right—he usually was. What was the point of protecting her heart from expiration dates? So what if Eight, or Pru, or even Watson’s Landing, were temporary islands of found in a sea of lost? Life wasn’t going to come knocking at her door. It wasn’t going to drag her out of bed while she buried her head beneath the covers, cowering. Living was going to be messy. She was bound to get scuff marks on her shoes.
She stopped on the last step, but Eight didn’t move aside to let her pass. They stood eye to eye, only a hand span apart.
“Are you sure you still want to do this?” Eight asked, and Barrie thought he was reading her heart again, until he add
ed: “We could still go somewhere else. Somewhere fun. You don’t owe Cassie anything, you know.”
Barrie swept around him and headed for the door. “Aren’t you even a little curious about the treasure?”
“Frankly, my dear”—he gave her a heartbreaking grin—“I don’t give a damn.”
“Funny,” Barrie said, but she couldn’t help smiling back.
He leaned in closer. His eyes dropped to her lips and lingered. “As long as I’m channeling Rhett Butler, there’s something I’ve been wanting to do ever since last night.”
His voice was so soft, it was more like an echo as he bent toward her. His hands reached for hers. Their fingers brushed, and the returning clicked again, so loud even he had to hear it. How could he not hear it? The usual root beer and cherries smell of him mingled with the scent of salt on his skin. Barrie thought only for a second about how much breaking one heart could bear, but then his lips were almost warm on hers, almost touching . . .
“Barrie, sugar, are you still here?” Pru called from up the stairs. “Hold on, I’m coming down.”
Pru reached the second-floor landing as Barrie turned. “I told myself I wasn’t going to ask you to be careful,” Pru called down. “Be careful anyway.”
Barrie’s pulse thud-thud-thudded like wheels on cobblestones, and she nodded, not really listening. Eight had almost kissed her, and even almost had been amazing. She wanted to press her hands to her cheeks to hide the rush of color she knew was there.
Boys didn’t usually—ever—hang around long enough to want to kiss her. The finding gift or Mark or Lula or something always ran them off. Of course, Eight didn’t really know her yet. There was still time for him to run off screaming.
“Thanks, Aunt Pru.” She gave her aunt a vague wave and dismissed the thought that she should stay, that Pru might need her.
Eight waited until the front door had closed behind them before he turned her toward him again. “You have a smudge of dirt on your nose.”
“I do not.” She’d just had a shower, after all.
He gave her a slow, wicked grin. “Are you going to argue now?”
He brushed her nose with the edge of his finger and stepped closer, his eyes broadcasting that he was going to kiss her. But out there in the daylight, in the open, Barrie couldn’t. Mouth dry again, she stepped away. The sun vanished behind a cloud overhead, and she shivered. “Um. Maybe I should get a sweater.”
“All right.” Eight frowned down at her, looking confused.
Barrie managed a dignified walk back into the house. Once inside, though, she raced across the foyer and up the stairs, her thoughts flying in every direction. Halfway to the landing, a step pitched suddenly, throwing her shoulder-first into the wall as her feet slipped. Her hip smacked the edge of the tread. She landed three steps down, and her elbow hit the step above her.
“Damn,” she said, out of breath and choking on outrage.
“Are you all right?” Pru poked her head over the railing again. “Hold on. Don’t move until I get there.” She sprinted down the stairs.
Barrie pulled herself up to sit on the step. The sound of Mary’s footsteps running down the corridor blurred into the rush of Pru’s descent.
Mary barely came into view before she started scolding: “Didn’t you hear your aunt?” she asked. “Don’t you go gettin’ up until we’ve had a look at you.”
Barrie rested her shoulder against the wall, and Pru dropped to the step beside her. “That’s twice you’ve almost killed yourself on this staircase.”
“Three times,” Barrie said. As soon as the words were out, she wished she could take them back. There was no point in worrying Pru, but it couldn’t be coincidence. The house, the spirits, the Fire Carrier . . . something was out to get her.
Seeing Pru and Mary exchange a look filled with horror, Barrie suspected they had reached the same conclusion. Mary’s finger twitched as if she wanted to waggle it at Pru, but she folded her arms and glared at her instead.
“I told you,” Mary said.
“You didn’t tell me she would fall down the stairs.”
“I told you they’re gettin’ worse.”
“What am I supposed to do,” Pru snapped, “replace every screw and nut and peg in the house with iron? It would look hideous, and they’d only find something else to break.”
“You mark my words, you or the child—someone’s gonna get hurt. You can’t just keep hoping they’ll stop if you ignore ’em long enough.”
“But why are they doing it?” Barrie asked. It made no sense.
Pru and Mary turned to her with matching expressions of surprise.
“It’s not like they’re doing any real damage,” Barrie continued. “Except to me. Dismantling one stair at a time, one shutter . . . That seems more like a message than taking the house apart. Plus, if you’re still feeding them, why are they acting up at all?”
Mary stiffened like a corpse and narrowed her eyes at Pru. “Tell me I didn’t hear that right.”
Conveniently letting her hair fall to hide her face, Pru bent to examine Barrie’s elbow. “Does this hurt bad, sugar? How hard did you hit it?”
“Don’t you go pretendin’ you didn’t hear me.” Mary poked Pru on the chest. “Haven’t I told you and told you to leave ’em plat eyes alone?”
“Plat eyes?” Barrie pulled her arm away and tucked it behind her back, peering from Pru to Mary and back again. “What are plat eyes?”
Mary’s lips fused into a stubborn seam, and Pru heaved a sigh. “They’re what the Gullah—the descendants of the West Indian and Angolan slaves here on the sea islands—call the spirits of the unburied or carelessly buried dead. Mary insists that’s what the yunwi really are.”
“No insisting ’bout it. I’ve seen ’em, haven’t I?” Mary said. “Not that I wanted to. One look in their fire eyes, and they’ll grow and grow till they swallow you whole. What we need around here are some bottle trees. Then we trap ’em before they make more trouble.”
“Bottle trees?” Pru glared back at her. “Even if that worked, don’t you think the Fire Carrier would mind just a little if we did that?”
Before Mary could answer and the argument could escalate—which it was going to, Barrie could tell already—the door opened and Eight leaned inside. “Are you about ready, Bear? We’ve got— Hey!” He crossed to the stairs. “What happened?”
“Nothing. I’m a klutz, in case you didn’t get the memo,” Barrie said. “And I still need to get my sweater.” Mindful of the broken step, she hurried upstairs, grabbed a sweater from the armoire in her bedroom, and ran back down to find Eight alone in the foyer. “Where did Pru and Mary go?”
“That way.” He pointed down the corridor toward the kitchen. “They were arguing like a couple of hissing geese. So now are you going to tell me what happened?”
Barrie debated whether to say anything at all; she was so tired of all the half answers. “Have you ever seen the Fire Carrier?” she asked. “Actually seen him?”
Holding the door for her, Eight paused. “Why do you want me to have seen him?”
“Don’t answer a question with a question. I’m onto you.” Barrie slapped him on the arm.
He stayed a step behind her so she couldn’t see his face. “A lot of people have—or claim they have. Anyone with Watson or Beaufort or Colesworth blood. Anyone sensitive to ghosts or psychic events. Not to mention the frauds who come down and make a production of it. We’ve even had a guy from MIT insisting it’s some kind of freak weather phenomenon around this part of the island.”
“But what do you see? What does the Fire Carrier look like?”
“Like a witch light moving through the woods and a wash of red and orange on the river, like sunset by moonlight. Except it happens even when the moon is covered.” Eight held the passenger door, then went around to start the car. “I looked up the yunwi like you asked, by the way.”
“Did you find anything helpful?”
“If by ‘helpful
’ you mean ‘confusing,’ sure. If you’re hoping I found an article titled ‘Yunwi, Instructions on Exorcism of,’ then not so much.”
Barrie swallowed a sigh. “And?”
“The word means ‘people,’ which, unhelpfully, doesn’t distinguish between living or dead, human or supernatural. The Cherokee believe there are both yunwi water spirits and something called ‘little people,’ who either torment you or bring good fortune, depending on how you treat them and what kind of person you are. Hold on.” He held up his hand as Barrie opened her mouth. “Before you say ‘And?’ again, that’s it. That’s all I’ve got.”
Barrie swallowed the urge to slap him. But then she processed the rest of what he’d said. “So I must really be a horrible person,” she said. “Or I accidentally did something to piss them off.”
“Why do you think so?”
“Because they’re dismantling pieces of the house again.”
The engine revved, and Eight shifted into a lower gear. “Dismantling, like taking the screws out of shutters and the security chain off kitchen doors, you mean?”
“Also banisters and steps and chair legs.” Barrie nodded. “But there is a better question. How do we make them stop?”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Behind the stage the eight lighted columns of Colesworth Place rose like the skeletons of the dying South against a bloody sky. A fitting backdrop for Cassie’s play.
A high school boy in a Confederate uniform led Barrie and Eight through a small crowd of tourists fanning themselves with programs. In the center of the front row, he picked up a pair of RESERVED signs from the folding metal chairs.
“Enjoy the show,” he said. Giving them a smart salute, he clicked his heels together and turned back to the ticket table.
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