That was even more frightening than some storybook monster that you could fight with garlic and a big wooden stake.
She wondered where Georgia was tonight. Was she already dead? Her lifeless body back by the river, just like Virginia at the end?
She said a little prayer for the woman, then lay there with wide unblinking eyes, listening for the sound of death’s footsteps at her door.
Chapter 51
Annie kissed Georgia’s cheeks again and again. “I wish you didn’t have to leave us so soon.”
“I know...it’s hard to go.”
Fred stepped out beside them. “Pity you can’t stay and keep that house going.”
“Speaking of that...I’ve hired a caretaker.”
They raised their eyebrows in unison.
“Daniel...the gardener. He’s going to stay there awhile. He’ll do some work on it and keep the lawn up.”
“Virginia never told us about any gardener fella. Maybe he was a secret boyfriend.” Annie winked.
She smiled away the suggestion and held out the silver rose key chain. “He’s going to stop by tomorrow to pick these up.”
“Oh dear...we’re leaving early to see Fred’s brother up in Russert.”
“I was hoping you could meet him. But...oh well. Maybe you could leave him a note on the porch with the key?”
Annie agreed.
Georgia left a few minutes later, burdened with foil-wrapped banana bread and homemade sweet pickles dyed in Annie’s famous shade of Kelly green. She ran back across the field and tossed them onto the passenger seat of her rental car. A glance at her watch told her that Marsha was going to be spittin’ nails by the time she got there.
She tore out of the driveway, swerving just in time to avoid landing in the ditch.
As she approached the intersection of Main and Countyline, the shops looked dark and quiet, and the sidewalks were empty. She floored the pedal to make it through before the light changed, but it turned red before she made it.
Red and blue lights flashed in her rearview mirror.
“Damn!” She pulled over to the curb adjacent to a barbershop. Her thoughts were a jumbled stew: another delay, a ticket, and a really pissed off sister. But, those concerns evaporated as she looked in the side mirror and saw KarlBauer striding up from behind her car.
“GeorgiaMcKenna!” he said when he reached the window. “I had no idea it was you flying through town like a bat on fire.”
“Hi Karl. Sorry. I’m late getting to Marsha’s. I was supposed to be there for dinner over an hour ago.”
“I’m not sure if I should ticket you for going forty in a twenty or for running a red light...or both. You know we triple the fine for out-of-towners.”
“Well...I might have been going a bit fast, but the light was orange, wasn’t it?”
He took his notepad out of his pocket and clicked on his pen. Then, he looked up into her eyes and leaned a little closer toward her open window. “I suppose...I could let you off with a warning this time. That’s a lot more than I’d do for anyone else going through here at the speed of light in a rental car.”
“I’d really appreciate it. I promise I’ll slow down.”
He tipped his cowboy hat to her. “Alright, Ma’am. We’ll let ’er go for your first offense.”
“Thank you, ” she said as she leaned out the window and watched him begin to walk back to his patrol car.
But, he stopped and came back.
“One more thing, McKenna. How about dinner tomorrow night?”
She pursed her lips and every muscle in her body tightened. “I’m sorry...I’m heading back to New York in the morning.”
“Oh...that’s right,” he said as he slid his pen back into his pocket. He tipped his hat again and turned back around.
As he walked away, Georgia thought she heard him say, “What a shame…”
*****
Marsha wasn’t spittin’ nails when she arrived, she was spittin’ red-hot railroad spikes. Georgia saw her sister in the doorway with her hands welded onto her hips like an angry army sergeant.
“I’m sorry...let me explain,” Georgia yelled as she got out of the car.
“Explain what?” Marsha sneered. “How dinner is cold and how Clarissa went to bed in tears, because she thought she wasn’t going to get to see her aunt Gorgie again for years?”
“I’m really sorry,” Georgia said as she brushed by Marsha’s stiff elbows and tried to make her excuses as she stepped inside.
“A caretaker? Why? You’ve got Fred and Annie, and we’re not that far away.”
She stepped into the kitchen and saw the table full of dirty dishes with the remains of a chicken casserole and rock-hard rolls. She explained further as she sat down and began to serve herself the remains of the cold meal.
Marsha narrowed her eyes into laser points. “You should just sell that house and be done with it and give me half...it’s only fair.“
“Here we go again...that’s exactly why she didn’t give it to you. She knew you’d sell it off in a heartbeat.”
Marsha wrinkled her nose. “You can’t hang on to it forever from so far away. It’s as ancient as dirt. It’s going to fall apart and go to the termites eventually no matter how many squatters you let stay there.”
Georgia filled her mouth with a large bite of casserole.
“You’d better go see the kids. They’re in their rooms. Hopefully, Clarissa hasn’t cried herself to sleep.”
Georgia rose from the table and walked to the hallway that led to the bedrooms. Jarrod was fast asleep with a comic book across his chest. So, she went to Clarissa’s room and knelt beside her. “Clarissa,” she whispered. “It’s Aunt Gorgie. I came to tell you goodbye.”
The tiny eyelashes fluttered open. “Do you really have to go?”
Georgia ruffled her hair. “I’m afraid so. But, I’ll come back to visit you as soon as I can.”
“But...what will happen to Alpie? He’ll be all alone.”
She wondered how long it was normal for children to have imaginary friends. “Maybe you can find a new friend for him.”
Clarissa looked at her Aunt as if she’d lost her mind. “That’s silly. How could I do that? What about Max? Who’s going to feed him?”
“Annie and Fred will. There’s going to be a man living in the house while I’m gone. I’ll tell him to keep an eye out for Alphonso too.”
“Okay...” the little girl said with half open eyes as she leaned up and offered a hug. “I’ll miss you...” she whispered.
“I’ll miss you too, sweetie,” Georgia said as she kissed her cheek then tiptoed back out of the room as the princess’s eyes fluttered shut again.
She peered into Stevie’s room and saw him sitting cross-legged on the bed with earphones, nodding his head to the beat. He pulled them off when he saw her then gave her a nod and the peace sign as his farewell.
When she returned to the kitchen, Marsha was clearing the dirty dishes from the table. As she took each plate back to the sink, she dumped the silverware into the dishwater with a loud clank then began vigorously scrubbing.
Georgia sat down and watched the beads of sweat drip down her water glass. “Even with all the bad blood between you two over the years, I find it hard to believe that Grammie wouldn’t have left you something. Are you ever going to tell me what she said in your letter?”
Marsha pivoted around, keeping her hands behind her back at the edge of the sink. Her hair, a tangled web of disheveled blonde curls falling out of a bun, looked as wild as her eyes. There was nothing cheerful about her smile.
“What would be the point? Even if it’s true that she begged for my forgiveness and expressed her love...she gave you the house. You were always the good granddaughter ...her favorite. Little Georgia could do no wrong since before our parents died and we moved in with her. You’ve always been the prima donna.” She took a step forward—her hands still awkwardly hidden behind her back.
A chill rippled through
Georgia. She leaned forward in her chair and pointed her feet towards the back door. This is it, she thought. She’s lost it. She’s got a knife, and she’s going to try to kill me.
“I know she had to have left you something.”
Marsha stopped just three feet away. “What she left me was a riddle...a wild goose chase that probably will amount to nothing but years of frustration. That was her last laugh...her last bitter revenge on her black sheep offspring.”
“A riddle? I can’t believe that she...” Georgia threw up her hands. “Why won’t you tell me?“
“Because, you’re smarter than I am. You’re the college gal. You’d figure it out, find the treasure and cart if off to New York...and I’d be none the wiser. If there’s any possibility that it exists, I’m going to find it on my own.”
“It?”
“If and when I want you to know...I’ll tell you. If I don’t find it, then I expect a fair share of that property.”
“I don’t want to sell that house! I don’t know what I’m going to do...but selling it is the furthest thing from my mind.”
Marsha sank down in the chair across from her with a vacant stare. The gears in her head seemed to be grinding inside. Her hands were now in her lap, and Georgia saw that she held a wet dishrag instead of something more lethal. She worked it back and forth with her fingers, ignoring the wet stain on her apron. When, she spoke it was slow and careful, the malice oozing and bleeding from each word. “You might change your mind...all the way there back in New York. Who knows what could happen to that old fossil of a house while you’re gone.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Marsha jumped up and walked back to the sink. “I’m just saying that you can’t take care of it from so far away, and she’s not going to get any better with age. You can slap a coat of paint on it and decorate it real pretty, but if the foundation’s rotten...then what’s the point of hanging on?”
“She? This isn’t about the house, is it? You’d like to see that house razed to the ground as the last nail in Grammie’s coffin.”
As Marsha rinsed off a plate and moved it over to the dish drainer, it slipped from her fingers and crashed to the floor. She looked down at the fragments scattered around her feet and buried her face in her wet hands. Her sobs came in convulsions.
Georgia leapt up from her chair and tried to put an arm around her, but she flung it off.
“If it’s money you need...” Georgia began.
As Marsha raised her head from her hands, mascara smudged down to her cheeks in jagged black streaks. Her eyes blazed with fire, and her voice was poisonous. “Don’t you have a plane to catch early in the morning?”
Georgia stood still and stared as Steven came running in from the living room.
“What’s going on?”
Marsha’s eyes turned icy. “Georgia was just leaving.”
Steven turned to her. “Is everything alright?”
“Just a little accident. I really do have to get going.”
“Well, have a safe trip back. Good to see you again. Hopefully, next time it won’t be under such sad circumstances.”
Georgia nodded as he gave her a brief hug.
When they parted, Marsha turned around and stuck her hands back into the dishwater. Her hands flew back and forth with such rapid speed as she scrubbed a plate that Georgia thought it might catch fire.
“I guess I’ll be going then,” she said as she grabbed her jacket and her purse. She took one last glance in her sister’s direction. Then, she gave a nod to Steven and walked to the door. He looked dumbstruck as she waved goodbye.
Chapter 52
The next morning, the spirit watched Georgia leave through the window in the round turret room. “Bon giorno, signora.”
After her car disappeared down the road, he paced up and down the hallway, flinging his arms in the air. Then, he soared down the stairs and howled as he reached the bottom. His tortured voice bounced off the walls and echoed back to him in reverberations.
It would be another eternity of loneliness without companionship.
He darted into Virginia’s old bedroom, the very same room that had been WilliamCrawford’s a hundred years back. His lip curled into a triumphant snarl as he remembered again that Crawford was dust in a grave.
On the dresser, he saw the sepia toned photo of his former beloved. Through the brown sepia tint, she stared back at him. Margaret. My beautiful ragazza. We could have been together in this house.
He would always hold on to that fantasy, though he knew that Crawford would never have allowed their marriage. She could have run away with him. But, they could have made a life together... if only she would have said, ‘yes’.
He consoled himself with the fact that he no longer had to spend his nights in the shed that used to exist behind the barn. There, amongst the spiders, shivering in his cot he had choked down his feelings for Margaret with numerous bottles of cheap wine...night...after night.
Now...she was dust like her father.
Bring her back, a voice said in his head.
Margaret? He asked himself. It’s not possible. I’m not a sorceress like the one who brought me here.
But...as his feet carried him down the hall...he knew what he was telling himself.
He went into the bedroom where Georgia had spent the previous night, unaware that he watched her as she slept. As he had hovered over her, mesmerized by the rise and fall of her breaths, her body thrashed about as she seemed to dream of some terrible event. Then, as he sat in a chair across the room melding into the dark shadows as if he were no more than another umbrage amongst the reflection of tree branches in the moonlight against the wall...she had screamed and bolted awake.
For a few moments, her eyes darted about the room. He had been still and surely quite invisible. But, had she sensed his presence?
After a few moments of examining the shadows, she lay back down and returned to the wicked arms of her dreams.
He pulled back the blankets from the bed and traced the empty indentation in the sheets with his hands. Then, he leaned down and smelled the pillow, drinking in the faint feminine scent of her hair.
Yes...she was certainly a descendent of his dear Margaret’s lineage. He saw it in her eyes and smelled it in on her skin.
He lay down on the bed and wondered what he might do to bring her back to Calathia. He was lost in his thoughts, inventing and discarding schemes when he heard the jingling of keys.
He ran down to the end of the staircase and saw a figure through the stained glass. Before he could decide to disappear or stand his ground, the door opened, and he saw a young man standing there. It was Stevie Hayden, Virginia’s great grandson.
The spirit made no move to hide himself.
Stevie stopped cold and stammered, “Who the hell are you?”
“Daniel...the gardener...and now the caretaker as well. What are you doing in my house?”
“This is my great grandmother’s house.”
“Not anymore,” the spirit said as he watched panic overtake the boy with a shudder. “Georgia has entrusted its care to me.”
Stevie glared at him. “She never mentioned hiring a caretaker.”
The spirit shrugged. “It was...a late decision.”
“Whatever,” Stevie said. Then, he looked over the spirit’s shoulder as if checking to make sure that there weren’t a dozen more occupants to confront him. “There’s something here that’s mine, and I’ve got to find it.”
“And what might that be?”
Stevie hesitated, then thrust his hands out in front of him as if grasping at something invisible from the air. “The Black Diamond. My great grandmother willed it to my mother. I know its here somewhere.”
The spirit smirked, and his grin stretched across the room. A low guttural laugh...almost a growl...started softly then built to a crescendo. “Affascinante. How much is this Black Diamond worth to you?”
“Oh...” Stevie said as his face lit u
p with the twinkle of his imagination. “It’s priceless. It’s a family heirloom.”
“I see...and if I help you find this...precious jewel?”
“I’d owe you, man. Big time!”
“Perhaps, we can work out a deal, then.”
“Anything...”
The spirit smiled. “What I request may not be in your ability.”
Stevie stiffened, prepared for the challenge. “Name it.”
“Your Aunt Georgia has gone back to New York?”
“Yeah,” he replied with a shrug. “So?”
“I want her to come back to Calathia.”
Stevie paused. Then, he sighed. “How am I supposed to do something about that?”
“You’re a smart lad...you can figure something out. That is ...if you want this Black Diamond as badly as you say you do.”
The boy chewed on his bottom lip, then fidgeted with the key chain hooked onto his jeans. “Maybe you should show it to me first.”
The spirit descended the last step and rounded the banister. Then he took a step closer. “Bring Georgia back, and I’ll produce your Black Diamond.”
Stevie retreated. His voice cracked into a shrill stutter, “I... I’ll try...”
“Make it soon,” the spirit said as he appeared next to the young man with one hand braced on the door.
The tremor in the Stevie’s voice continued. “Al...alright. I’m outta...here. But, I’ll be...back.”
“Don’t bother...until you’ve done what I have asked.”
Stevie yanked the door open and barreled through it. The spirit watched as his truck disappeared in a cloud of dust. Despite the promise, he knew Stevie wouldn’t be back, and probably would be of little help in procuring Georgia.
What a laugh...the boy looking for the Black Diamond! If he only he knew that it had been lost forever! He knew that Crawford had grown tired of the incessant inquiries about it and the thieves circling the property like hawks, so he had hidden it so well that it would never be found.
The spirit winced as he felt a weakness in his chest, an indescribable twinge of agony. He couldn’t believe that the pain from his ancient wound still seemed to come and go with such unpredictable fury. He knew that he had to recharge again.
The Gardener Page 22
