The Book of Beloved (Pluto's Snitch 1)

by Carolyn Haines

  PRAISE FOR CAROLYN HAINES

  “A writer of exceptional talent.”

  —Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on Them Bones

  “Southern storytelling is indeed a very special art form.”

  —New York Times Book Review on The Darkling

  “Written with a languid sensuality, this rich and complex work features quirky, fully developed characters involved in an unpredictable story, with Mattie’s long-awaited revenge providing a bittersweet but satisfying coda.”

  —Publishers Weekly on Touched

  “So vivid, so energetic, so poignant that it seems to move on reels rather than pages.”

  —Chicago Tribune on Touched

  “Like the heat of a Deep South summer, Ms. Haines’s novel has an undeniable intensity; it’s impossible to shake its brooding atmosphere.”

  —New York Times Book Review on Touched

  OTHER NOVELS BY CAROLYN HAINES

  Deception

  Summer of the Redeemers

  Touched

  Judas Burning

  Penumbra

  Fever Moon

  Revenant

  Skin Dancer

  Shop Talk

  Sarah Booth Delaney Mysteries

  Them Bones

  Buried Bones

  Splintered Bones

  Crossed Bones

  Hallowed Bones

  Bones to Pick

  Ham Bones

  Wishbones

  Greedy Bones

  Bones Appétit

  Bones of a Feather

  Bonefire of the Vanities

  Smarty Bones

  Booty Bones

  Bone to Be Wild

  Rock-a-Bye Bones

  Writing as R. B. Chesterton

  The Darkling

  The Seeker

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2016 Carolyn Haines

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781503938069

  ISBN-10: 1503938069

  Cover design by M. S. Corley

  For Eugene Walter, a ghost now himself.

  He is always near as I feed the horses, chase the cats, or stand beneath the tallow tree when the leaves quake and the spirits are walking.

  He gave me the seed of this story, and so much more.

  CONTENTS

  START READING

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  “Now I know what a ghost is . . . Unfinished business, that’s what.”

  —Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses

  CHAPTER ONE

  In Savannah, Georgia, two things could be counted on without question—the heat of summer and Alfred the mail carrier’s regular arrival six days a week. I had come to anticipate his knock at four each afternoon, as regular as the milkman and the daily newspaper delivery. I looked forward to Alfred’s arrival, not because I carried on a great correspondence with anyone, but because I needed regularity, routine. Death had taught me the power and stabilizing influence of routine. Alfred’s arrival meant the world continued in an ordered fashion.

  I opened the door and accepted the single letter he offered. “You’re looking well, Miss Raissa. I suspect you’re as happy to be out of the schoolroom as the students are.”

  “Yes, summer break is much appreciated. Remember to hold my mail beginning tomorrow. I’ll stop by the post office when I return to let you know.” Of course, everyone already knew about my pending travels. Savannah, for all its big-city attitude, was in many ways still a small town.

  “Yes, ma’am. I’ll take care of it. Mrs. Wheaton is going to Boston to visit her nephew, so I’m holding her mail, too. It seems her sister has been having a hard time of it.” He made a sympathetic face. “Nerves, they say. Some form of female hysteria. Now you have a safe trip and a good visit.”

  The solid weight of the letter promised an Event, the kind with a capital E. My kindhearted uncle wanted to distract me from what he viewed as my overlong mourning. I’d been a widow now longer than I’d been a wife, and Uncle Brett felt it was his duty to drag me back to the land of the living. Still holding the vellum envelope addressed to me in a flowing hand, I walked out onto the porch of my small Savannah cottage.

  The sweet scent of wisteria filled the peaceful air, and down the block a horse clopped. The day was concluding, and soon the shops would be closed, with the merchants at home dining with their families. Already the slower pace of summer had begun to creep over the lovely old city.

  I sat in a wicker rocker without opening the envelope. Tomorrow I would travel alone for the first time since Alex had been killed in the Great War. It wasn’t a step I was ready to take. To be jarred out of the familiar patterns of working and living made me anxious. And I knew I was still waiting. Even though time had passed, I hadn’t fully accepted the fact that I’d never see my husband again. Taking up the reins of life meant that I’d accepted he was gone forever.

  The unfairness of my husband’s death—the slaughter of seventeen million people in the bloodiest conflict in history—coiled around me like a noose, strangling the pleasure from each day. Alex James had been twenty-seven, a lawyer with great dreams of fighting against injustice. I’d met him at a rally to demand the vote for women. He had been a dreamy-eyed activist with a megaphone and a passion for equality.

  I’d been a bride and barely a wife before Alex joined the fight against Germany. After a too-brief honeymoon, he’d left for France. From that point, our marriage had consisted mostly of erratic letters, longings, promises, and hopes for the future. A future that never arrived. He’d died on a field of carnage that often invaded my dreams.

  Pushing away the dangerous emotions, I broke the envelope’s seal and pulled out a printed invitation.

  As a celebration of the arrival of my niece, Raissa James, please join me for an evening of dancing on June 12, 1920. Extend your stay at Caoin House for the weekend and join in game
s of croquet, lawn tennis, and a hunting game with clever clues provided. Sincerely, Brett Airlie

  Leave it to Uncle Brett to plan a party that lasted for a weekend. He was determined to show me that life still held joy and fun.

  I considered canceling the trip to Mobile. I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t even certain that I could laugh and dance with strangers. Yet the summer stretched ahead of me with too much unoccupied time. When I was in the classroom, bringing the excitement and adventure of literature to my charges, or grading papers at home, the days passed. The loneliness remained at bay. Now the May Day festivities were over, and school was out for summer vacation. Even I had to admit I looked wan and unhealthy. A long-overdue visit with my high-spirited and popular uncle might help me break out of the coffin of my own depression.

  My departure was set for nine the next morning on the Seaboard Air Line Railroad. The journey to Mobile would take three days, and I determined to once again find my adventurous nature and dispel the gloom. I was only twenty-four. I had many years ahead of me, and it was time I learned to step forward to meet them.

  Tucking the invitation into my memory book, my hand strayed to the book’s pages. I opened it to the photograph of Alex and me. It was the day of our wedding, and we stood on the courthouse lawn, where so many war brides had been photographed. The wedding had been a hurried affair, a civil ceremony, because I had no family in Savannah to invite and Alex’s clan lived too far away in Boston to attend on such short notice.

  My finger traced the smile on my face, and I could still feel the pressure of his arm around my shoulders, feel his whisper against my ear as he nuzzled my newly bobbed hair. He’d liked the short cut. Alex said it made me look formidable. He’d been so clever at making me laugh.

  My fingers raked through the dark curls that stopped at my jaw. The school had not approved of my haircut, but the shortage of teachers made it impossible for them to send me away. New times were coming to America, and before the summer was over, women expected to have the right to vote in elections.

  I put the memory book in the bulging trunk. To pass the remainder of the evening, I picked up a novel. I’d spent the past semester sharing the dark stories of Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne with my high school students. While many resisted the idea of “literature,” they could not escape the thrill of a good ghost story—nor could I. My secret ambition, which I’d shared only with my husband and Uncle Brett, was to write and publish tales of ghosts and strange happenings.

  I was now sampling Sheridan Le Fanu and Wilkie Collins, whose dark tales had kept me up late. The adventures of Sherlock Holmes was another favorite, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the writer behind the London detective, was in the New Orleans area, speaking about spiritualism, a new study that piqued my interest.

  If Uncle Brett was so inclined, I hoped we could make a trip to the wonderful city along the banks of the Mississippi and attend the lecture. Far, far at the back of my rational mind was the idea that perhaps, through a séance, I might have contact with Alex. It was a flight of fancy nurtured by the stories of Poe and others. If I could only know that my husband was safe and happy, that whatever horrors he’d suffered before he died had not marred his generous spirit, then I could release the past.

  I’d followed Doyle’s lectures on spiritualism closely, and I found consensus with his beliefs that reaching across the veil could be accomplished with the help of a true medium. Doyle worked with one particularly talented woman in New Orleans, Madam Petalungro. She’d acquired a following of devotees across America and throughout Europe. She could communicate with the dead.

  If I convinced Uncle Brett to adventure to New Orleans with me, maybe I could book a session with her. Perhaps I could learn to communicate with the departed. In the past, such an idea would have terrified me, but many things had changed. The river of loss I’d endured had transformed me. I was no longer afraid.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Traveling through the South in early June made me believe in the powers of spring, a time of rebirth and bounty. For the first time in forever, I had no responsibilities, not even to myself. Meals were served in the club car by white-suited Negroes who worked hard to anticipate my every desire. As the train rumbled southward, I had time to read or watch the scenery pass by, an addictive vista that captured my eyes and imagination. Who lived in these small towns? What were the people like? What work did they do?

  We passed through villages and then larger towns, the temperatures growing warmer. When the train stopped long enough at the different depots, I got off and gave myself a small tour of the area. More than once I spotted the same handsome young man, who always nodded politely and then disappeared in the crowds, only to reappear at the next stop. He was well dressed, with a strong chin and light eyes that seemed to hold laughter—and that followed me. An intriguing stranger appealed to my sense of adventure.

  Horseless buggies were in every small hamlet, a fact that surprised me. The era of the horse was coming to a close. Let the mechanical vehicles haul the heavy lumber and churn through the mud in cold and rain. The life of a dray horse was not one to be envied.

  We had a half-hour layover in Jacksonville, Florida, and I was eager to venture around the area. The sun seemed to limber up my stiff joints, and I found my step relaxing into a ground-covering stride. When Alex was alive, we loved to walk along the Savannah seawall. He teased me, saying the brisk Atlantic wind whipped color into my face. I told him the salty tang of the air made me think of pirates. For the past two years, I’d avoided the sea and had shut myself inside. Now, as I left Savannah and my sad memories behind, a smile found my lips more often.

  When a gathering of young men at the station in Jacksonville stared after me, instead of feeling guilt or upset, I smiled at them. They had likely fought in the war and survived. Who was I to deny them a sunny day among the living? Before I knew it, the handsome man I’d noticed on several train platforms caught up with me. Hat in hand, he introduced himself as Robert Aultman.

  “I’m traveling to Mobile, Alabama, on business,” he said. “I hope you don’t think I’m too forward, but we seem to be traveling in the same direction. I thought maybe we could chat and pass the time.”

  I thought to keep my destination to myself, but his open, sunny smile convinced me to lower my defenses. A conversational partner would pass the time. “My uncle, Brett Airlie, lives in Mobile.”

  “What a stroke of luck!” His enthusiasm was contagious. “I’m attending a party in Mobile at Mr. Airlie’s country home. The fete is in honor of his niece.”

  I had to laugh. Were I in the middle of a Poe tale, this happenstance would have a darker coloring. Coincidence was denied by those who believed in the guiding hand of departed spirits. Believers would say that meeting Robert Aultman was my destiny.

  “Well, Mr. Aultman, I’m Brett’s niece, Raissa James.”

  He shook my hand with more heartiness than most men would. I liked that he failed to treat me like some delicate bit of bric-a-brac that would turn to dust if he touched it. “What a pleasant surprise,” he said. “Your uncle is throwing quite a shindig in your honor, and I suspected something else entirely to be his motive.”

  “What motive did you assign?” I couldn’t resist.

  “I was positive the party was the prelude to marriage bids for some hefty, desperate, bovine niece who had just come on the marriage market.”

  His shocking words tickled my sense of humor. “That’s the most unflattering thing I’ve ever heard.”

  “Well, you hardly need your uncle’s help to capture a man’s interest, so I was off the mark, but it was the first thing I thought of when I opened the invitation. A lot of women have been waiting for the war to end so the matchmaking can begin.” The humor dimmed in his eyes. “So many men didn’t return.”

  He spoke the truth, and it was a personal one for me. There would be a number of young girls who never married because their potential mates had been cut down in battle. And then there
were those of us who were war widows.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “You lost someone, didn’t you?”

  “My husband.” I still wore my wedding band, and he noticed it at last.

  “I lost my brother. I’m astounded at the ways I miss him.” He looked into the distance for a brief moment, and I knew he struggled for control. “Aiden and I fought like territorial rats when we were little, and then we became friends. We started a shipping business together, and I saw him every day. I counted on his advice, his intelligence.” He stepped away from me and inhaled. “I’m sorry. I’m sure you feel your loss keenly enough without sharing mine.”

  “It’s odd, but it helps. A little.” There were times when I felt myself encased in a glass room, unable to hear or speak to anyone who passed by. I was that alone and isolated in my grief. It did help to share those feelings with another.

  The conductor blew his whistle to alert us to reboard the train. We’d been so busy chatting, we hadn’t made it off the platform to explore the town.

  “Join me in the club car for a lemonade, or perhaps something a bit more daring. I brought some rum as a gift for your uncle, but I have a bottle for personal use.”

  “It’s against the—” I bit back the prudish words, envisioning the dour matrons who paraded in front of the city clerk’s office in support of Prohibition. Alex and I had shared an occasional drink, and I could use the way it loosened the tension in my shoulders. “I’d love a drink.”

  “I’ll meet you in the club car. Order two lemonades or, if you’d prefer a more exotic drink, get us two Coca-Colas, and we’ll make our own fizzy giggle water.”

  He was trying to impress me, and I liked it. “I’ll surprise you.”

  “You already have,” he said as he jumped aboard the train and pulled me up before departing for his sleeper and the booze.

  I arrived in Mobile the next day with a pounding headache and a desperate desire to get off the rocking train. Travis Wells, my uncle’s burly groundskeeper, met me at the station in a Ford. The rise of the automobile had reached even sleepy Mobile. It didn’t surprise me that my uncle would be in the vanguard of the automotive movement. He’d made his fortune designing steam engines for paddle-wheelers that ran up and down the rivers that fed the Tensaw Waterway and ultimately emptied into Mobile Bay. The money made from his inventions funded his purchase of Caoin House and the seven thousand surrounding acres.