by Jana DeLeon
I told Sissy’s cousin I would destroy it, but she said the power in the statue could not be destroyed—it must be contained. I will drug Franklin’s wine tonight and use the servant’s passage to sneak into his room. I will bring Sissy’s cousin the statue so she can bind the evil spirits inside.”
“What in the world?” John asked.
“It gets better,” Olivia said, then flipped a couple of pages and continued reading.
“June 16, 1863
I took the statue to Sissy’s cousin tonight. She had a violent reaction to the piece as soon as she saw the eyes. The emeralds, she said, are cursed. She removed the emeralds from the statue and placed them in a pouch for safekeeping, then performed a spell on the statue to separate it from the evil in the stones. We then broke the statue and crushed the pieces until they were dust. We collected the dust in a jar and will fling it far into the bayou where the spirits that inhabit the water can prevent it from resurfacing. She will set the stones in metal to bind them and cast the spell two nights from now when the moon is full.
I know this is the only way, but I feel overwhelming guilt for the future I am creating for my ancestors. The stones will not remain bound forever. One day, the emeralds will call on those of my lineage to fulfill the prophecy that I have set in motion.
Even if it costs their life.”
“Cursed emeralds, spirits in bayous...” John shook his head. “Do you think she’d gone crazy?”
“I don’t know. I mean, she was sold to a wife beater, couldn’t be with the man she loved and was locked away in this place from anyone who might have helped her, but that doesn’t mean she was crazy. You have to remember the times. People didn’t dismiss the paranormal as easily as they do today, and from reading these journals it looks like she was under heavy influence from her maid’s cousin.”
“So you’re saying she might have been perfectly sane and still believed the emeralds were cursed.”
“Exactly.”
John stared at her for a moment, then narrowed his eyes. “You don’t believe in cursed emeralds, do you?”
Olivia took a deep breath and blew it out slowly, considering all the facets to his question. “On the surface, no, but I do believe there are plenty of things on this earth that can’t be explained, so I try to keep an open mind. What I believe isn’t relevant anyway. Obviously, the intruder believes it.”
“And he thinks you’re here to fulfill some prophecy. That’s the only thing that makes sense.”
“Maybe I am.” She placed her elbows on the table and leaned toward John. “Maybe the dreams are the part that can’t be explained with science or logic, assuming I’m a descendant of Marilyn Borque.”
“You want me to believe that cursed emeralds are sending you nightmares as some sort of calling card? No wonder you write fiction.”
“Maybe, or maybe Marilyn Borque’s memories are buried somewhere in my genetic code and resurfacing in my conscience. Scientists still don’t understand the extent that genetics has over our bodies and minds. It’s not as far a stretch as you might imagine.”
John raised his eyebrows and leaned back in his chair. “Okay, I’ll give you that our understanding of the human body leaves much to be desired, but that’s still a huge leap to make.”
“But it’s the only one that explains everything—my dreams, my resemblance to Marilyn Borque and most important, how the intruder knew to prepare for me. Don’t you see, if he believed the prophecy would be fulfilled, then he only had to wait for me to come. He didn’t have to know who I was beforehand.”
John sat upright. “But my sister came before you.” He jumped up from his chair and paced the small room. “Man, that psycho probably thought she was the one. What if he killed her when you arrived and he realized he had the wrong woman?”
Olivia looked up at him. “I don’t believe he killed her.”
“Why wouldn’t he?”
“It’s too big a risk. Think about it. All these years no one’s been to this estate and within a matter of days, two different women arrive...alone. I may resemble Marilyn Borque, but there’s no way he can be certain that I’m the one. I think that’s why the message on my computer referred to ‘all’ of us.”
“You think he’s holding my sister somewhere, waiting for what? You to find cursed emeralds so the sky can fall or hell can rise?”
“More likely, so he can steal them and make off with the money. Just because he believes in some bizarre voodoo spell doesn’t mean he’s not still a common criminal.”
“Practical. I can appreciate that. So what’s he waiting for?”
Olivia frowned. “My guess is a day. There’s no reference to a future date in the journals, but he must have something in mind. Something soon for him to take a chance cutting down that tree and stealing our phones. He’s got to figure that, risky or not, we’re hiking out of here as soon as the storm breaks. I figure if the date was far off, he would have taken me hostage.”
“And quite possibly killed me.”
“I think that was his plan last night. Think about it. Earlier you convinced me to leave laMalediction. We had that conversation in the kitchen of the main house. He probably overheard the entire thing.”
“And he thought killing me would be a good way to make you stay?”
“I think he thought killing you would leave one less person to manage if he had to chain me up and force me to cast spells to reveal emeralds, or whatever he thinks I’m supposed to do.”
“Were there any more references to the prophecy in the journals?”
“No. And we’ve finished with what we brought from the library. Quite possibly there’s more information in the other books, but it would take a while to go through them all. A lot more time than you want to spend.”
John stopped pacing and blew out a breath. “I’ve failed everyone. My sister. My mother. You.”
Olivia rose from her chair and placed one hand on his arm. “You didn’t fail anyone. Your sister walked into a bad situation. Your mother knows you’re doing everything you can to find her.”
“And you?”
“You can’t fail me. I’m not your responsibility.”
“I hurt you. Intentionally.”
“No, you lied intentionally. Yeah, it hurt at first, but I would have done the same thing if I were in your position.”
John touched her face with one hand. “I need you to know that I didn’t use you. Last night was special. It wasn’t business.”
Olivia felt her heart clench and she wondered for a split second how different things might have been if they’d met at another time. “It was special for me, too, and I hope it’s a memory I get to take with me for a long time to come.”
John dropped his hand to his side. “Olivia...I... Never mind.”
Olivia wanted to know what he was going to say, but she knew better than to ask. John Landry already had two full-time females depending on him, and it was clear to her that he didn’t need a third. And Olivia didn’t want anyone feeling responsible for her. She’d always called the shots, and including someone else in every aspect of her life wasn’t something she was comfortable with. No one was allowed to get that close to her. That way, there was nothing to lose.
She dropped her hand from his arm and looked down at the floor, not certain how to say what she had to say. Finally, she blurted it out. “I’m not going to sit around here waiting for the final hatchet to fall. I’m leaving tomorrow on foot. I’d rather take my chances with the swamp creatures than a crazy man obsessed with cursed emeralds.”
“You don’t know anything about these swamps,” John argued. “You’re at a tremendous disadvantage, even if the storm subsides.”
“I’m at a tremendous disadvantage here. Leaving is my only chance to get help. The main road back to town is too far, but I figured
I can hike up to those cabins we discovered and see if someone has a way to call for help.”
“And what if those cabins are occupied by the intruder or his family or friends?”
“It’s a risk I have to take.” She paused and bit her lower lip. “That risk could be lessened if you went with me.”
John’s jaw flexed and Olivia could tell that a million thoughts, most of them unpleasant, were running through his mind. “And my sister? You think we should just go off and leave her here with a madman?”
“I’ll help you search tomorrow for half a day. After that, I’m leaving whether you come with me or not. We need backup, John. With all your training, you have to know that. This is the Louisiana bayou horror version of Vietnam. We’ve been ambushed.”
“Damn it. You’re right. I know you’re right, but the choices are all so wrong.”
“I don’t think he’ll hurt her until the time has passed. If we can get help here, we can dismantle this place if need be. It might be her only chance.”
“But you have no idea what date he has in mind.”
“I have a guess.” She pointed to a calendar on the kitchen wall. “Tomorrow night is a full moon.”
Chapter Sixteen
The dream came again, unbidden as always, and Olivia felt her pulse increase as she drifted toward the house in the storm. She swooped down into the bedroom, but rather than seeing Marilyn Borque asleep on the bed, she was already dead, her eyes wide open in fright and staring blankly at the ceiling. Blood stained her pale, silk nightgown and spilled onto the stark white sheets.
Franklin stood above her, smiling at his work. He gently brushed a lock of her hair back from her face, then stepped away from the bed and left the room. As he walked down the hallway to the stairs, a door across the hall from the master bedroom opened just a crack. The young Creole woman waited until Franklin was downstairs before pushing the door open and rushing across the hall into the master bedroom.
She hurried to the bed and cried out when she saw what Franklin had done. “Mistress!” She gathered Marilyn’s body in her arms and hugged it close to her, crying and repeating over and over “my friend, my lady.” When Franklin’s voice sounded from the courtyard, her body went rigid and she rose to look out the window.
He stood in the courtyard, in the midst of the storm yelling up at the night, “I want what is mine!” The Creole woman’s face flushed with rage and she pulled open the nightstand drawer. She drew a black candle and scissors from the drawer, then lit the candle with the lantern and placed it in the holder on the nightstand. She cut a lock from Marilyn’s hair and held it in her hand above the candle.
She stared out at Franklin Borque, her eyes full of hatred, and started chanting. Her voice grew louder with each passage of thunder and she opened her hand to allow the strands of hair to fall over the flame of the candle. Olivia struggled to make out what the woman said, but it was lost in the roar of the storm and Franklin’s continued cries. Finally, the last strand of hair wafted from her hand and drifted down onto the flame as if in slow motion.
“He took what was mine,” the woman cried out. “Give him what he is due!”
As soon as the words left her mouth, a single bolt of lightning flashed down from the sky and struck Franklin Borque directly in the heart, sending him crumpling to the ground.
Olivia sat up straight in bed, her eyes wide open. She sucked in a huge breath of air, swaying as a wave of dizziness ran through her. A knock sounded on the bedroom door and she jumped. A second later, John peeked inside. She must have looked distressed because he took one glance at her then pushed immediately inside.
“What’s wrong?” he asked. “Another dream?”
“Yeah,” she said and recounted the dream to him with every detail. “The Creole woman must have been Sissy.”
“She could have been anyone.”
“She called Marilyn ‘mistress’ and clearly she was attached to her. Only Marilyn’s personal servant would have a room in the main house on the same level as the owners.”
John sat down on the edge of the bed. “Olivia, you’re assuming that what you dreamed is real. After everything we read last night, why won’t you believe that your mind could have fabricated such a story? You’re able to write stories interesting enough to publish when you’re conscious. Don’t you think your unconscious mind has the same level of creativity?”
Olivia shook her head. “It was real. I don’t care how crazy it makes me sound. I believe the dreams.”
John sighed. “Even if it’s true, what good does it do us? The dream doesn’t tell us anything useful. We need to find my sister or those emeralds, as I suppose the intruder would be quite happy to work out a trade.”
“But we don’t even know that the emeralds are at laMalediction. Sissy’s cousin wove the spell in her home. There’s never been any indication that the stones were hidden here.”
“There’s no indication in what we read,” John pointed out. “But that library was full of books, and any one of them might refer to the return of the emeralds to laMalediction. The intruder must have had some reason to believe they’re here, otherwise he wouldn’t be doing this at all.”
“That’s true, but if the intruder’s certain they’re at laMalediction, and he hasn’t found them yet, then they’re not somewhere obvious.”
“Of course not. Look at how elaborate that tunneling system is. Those people did not do things in halves. It seems they went out of the way to hide and cloister and secret away most everything. We could look for a decade and might never find those stones.”
Olivia glanced over at the bedroom window, but with the thick drapes drawn, she couldn’t tell if the sun was up. “What time is it?”
“Almost seven. I want to get an early start.”
“And if we don’t find anything?”
John’s jaw flexed. “If we don’t find anything by noon, we’ll leave.”
* * *
JOHN PULLED A folded sheet of paper out of his pocket and placed it flat on the table in the underground library. He’d spent at least an hour the night before diagramming everything he could remember of the passages, making a concentrated effort to get the dimensions as close as he could to actuality.
“The black lines represent the sections of passages we covered yesterday,” he explained to Olivia. “The red lines are where I think the house’s ground-level structure doesn’t jive with the underground structure. Now, certainly they don’t have to. The basement area may not be as large as the house.”
“Or it may be larger than the house, but that’s not likely,” Olivia said, studying the drawing. “At least the drawing gives us a good place to start looking again. This was smart, John.”
John felt a small swell of pride at her approval, but knew he had much more to accomplish that day than a paper drawing. He pointed to a square section on the paper. “This is the library where we are now. By my estimates, it’s beneath the center of the house, so passages or walls could extend beyond three walls, leaving out the one that the entry passage extends in front of.”
Olivia nodded. “You’re right. We followed all the passages yesterday, but never tried to locate another passageway in the library. If this room is central, it may be surrounded by other avenues of escape or storage.”
“I’m hoping not, but yeah, this could just be one small rest area in a much larger maze.”
Olivia scanned the room then looked back at John. “You know, I’ve always wanted to see one of those bookcase secret doors. Under different circumstances, I might be enjoying this.”
“Under different circumstances, I might appreciate the creativity of the designer of this mess, but as it is, I’m mostly cursing him.” He studied the set of bookshelves along one wall. “All the shelves have crown molding across the top that connects with the ceiling. If one
of the bookcases moves, there would have to be a break somewhere in the molding, right?”
He walked the perimeter of the room, holding the lantern up to the top of the bookcases, checking every square inch of crown molding for a connection, but the only place it appeared to separate was at the corners. “Maybe I’m wrong.” He looked over at Olivia, who’d pulled a chair over to one set of bookcases and was standing on top of it, studying the crown molding.
“Not exactly.”
“What do you mean, not exactly? There’s no break in the molding.”
“But it doesn’t have to. What if it’s connected to all of the bookcases except for the one that moves?”
“Smart. You moonlight doing construction?”
Olivia blushed. “No. I saw it once in a movie, actually. But it makes sense. I mean from an I-have-secret-tunnels sort of perspective.”
John held the lantern up to the top of the bookcase where Olivia stood and inspected the bottom of the molding that sat flush with the bookcase. “The only problem with that theory is if our carpenter is excellent, then it will be almost impossible to detect the piece that’s not attached to the bookcase itself.”
He scanned the room again, trying to think of a faster way to accomplish their task. The stacks of books lining almost every shelf made it seem like even more of a task, until he remembered. “Look for places that aren’t dusty. The trigger would have to be on the shelf itself, right? If he moved books to get to it, or touched it on a regular basis, there should be signs that the dust was disturbed.”
“I’ll start on this wall,” Olivia said and jumped down from the chair.
John nodded and moved to the far wall. The first two bookcases appeared completely undisturbed, but on the third there were fine lines in the dust in front of one book. Like the book had been drawn back from its spot on the shelf. He pulled the book out from the shelf and felt the wall behind it. “I think I found something,” he said as his fingers ran across an indentation in the bookcase.
