The Strangers on Montagu Street

by Karen White

  Nola sat on the floor with her back to me, her opened backpack in front of her with all of its contents, including her mother’s music, scattered around her. Her new iPhone—upgraded from a generic flip-phone and part of the deal she’d made with Jack in exchange for agreeing to try the music lessons—was held to her ear, and she was speaking very quietly. Assuming it was Alston and not wanting to eavesdrop, I began to back away from the door, but stopped when I heard Nola sniff.

  “I told you, she wasn’t working on anything. I would have known.” She shook her head. “Yeah, I guess maybe when I was in school during the day, but she wouldn’t have hidden it from me. She always shared what she was working on, because”—Nola sniffed—“because she said I always had a really good ear.”

  She was silent for a moment, listening to the person on the other end. “I told you—I’ve looked through everything and I didn’t find anything. I promise to call you if I do. And would you . . .” She rubbed the heel of her hand into her eye. “Would you please let me know what you find out about Jimmy Gordon? Somebody needs to tell the world what a fake he is.” There was another brief pause and then she said good-bye.

  I’d almost made it out of her range of vision when the teddy bear that had been nestled in the sheets of the unmade bed hurled itself across the room, coming to rest at my feet and turning Nola’s head so that she spotted me in the doorway. I bent to pick it up, avoiding Nola’s eyes for a moment while I tried to justify eavesdropping versus my need to know as a parental figure.

  I examined the worn teddy bear and his football jersey with what looked like hand-stitched numbers, trying to see with my peripheral vision whether Bonnie was still there, and wondering why she’d thrown the bear at me. I thought I could hear a sweet melody being hummed, but when I turned my head it stopped.

  Nola stood and wiped her arms across her face, then glowered at me. “It’s rude to listen to other people’s conversations,” she said.

  “You’re right, and I’m sorry. It’s just that I heard you crying and I got concerned. Who was that?”

  I thought for a moment that she wasn’t going to tell me. She chewed on her lower lip, then said, “That was Rick Chase. My mom’s last boyfriend. He wanted to know where I was and how I was doing.”

  Cautiously, I asked, “How did he get your cell number?”

  Nola made a big production of fishing her boots out from under her bed and spent a lot of time focusing on the laces. “Actually, I called him. He found me on Facebook and sent me a message.”

  I raised my eyebrows. As of yet, Nola didn’t have a computer and Facebook wasn’t one of the apps allowed on her phone by her father. And he checked regularly.

  “Alston let me use her laptop to set up an account.”

  “Without the proper security settings, obviously, if he was able to find you and message you.”

  She glared at me under lowered eyebrows. “I’m not a moron. I wouldn’t have messaged back if he was a stranger. But I know him—and he left his phone number so I could call him.”

  I felt a little better. Still, I’d have to tell Jack so he could set parameters for Nola and her use of social media. If I knew how, I’d probably find out whether she had a Twitter account, too. All stuff we’d deal with later. Softly, I said, “What was that about Jimmy Gordon?”

  She stood, her face thunderous. “MYOB. Can we go now and get this stupid music lesson over with?” She stomped past me and I listened to her boots clomp down the stairs while I tried to figure out what MYOB meant.

  Nola was waiting by my car when my mother and I exited the house. I looked at her feet. “It’s less than a mile, so we’re going to walk, since the weather is still so mild. We’ll wait if you want to change shoes.”

  She looked at me as if I’d lost my mind. “Walk?”

  “Yes. You know, put one foot in front of the other. Walk. Something I assume you’ve been doing since you were a toddler.” I wanted to clap myself on the back. My sarcastic response wasn’t as good as one of hers but it was a fine showing.

  “Nobody walks in LA. It’s just . . . lame.”

  I began to head down the sidewalk. “Well, we’re not in LA, so we’re walking. It should take less than fifteen minutes, but if you keep stalling you’ll have to jog.”

  My mother held out her hand toward Nola. “Come on. You can appreciate the houses and gardens better when you’re on foot.”

  “Wow. Can’t wait.” Reluctantly, Nola let my mother pull her up from where she’d been leaning on my car. With a heavy sigh and requisite roll of her eyes, she began walking next to my mother. “For the record, I’ve been walking since I was nine months old. Not that I remember, but that’s what Mom told me.”

  I looked at Nola from the corner of my eye, trying to determine whether she realized she’d just spoken about her mother and their shared past without a hint of animosity or resentment. Maybe Nola had been in Charleston long enough that she could see her previous life through the forgiving filter of time. Or maybe there had once been a period in her life with Bonnie when things hadn’t been so desperate.

  “You must have been a very precocious child,” my mother said, lifting her delicate shoe over a crack in the sidewalk.

  “I’m guessing she got that from her father,” I said under my breath, causing my mother to poke me in the back.

  She continued. “Mellie was, too. She was speaking in full, coherent sentences by the time she was two. Her father said it was because she had the undivided attention of both parents, who didn’t speak to her as if she were a baby. I think it was because even back then she knew what she wanted, and wanted everybody else to know it, too.”

  I looked at my mother, too surprised to be offended. I didn’t know a lot about my early childhood. After my mother left, my father wasn’t prone to sentimental reminiscences, so my earliest memories were of me as a motherless child whose entry and earliest ramblings in this world were parts of an invisible past.

  I stared hard at the sidewalk in front of me, concentrating on placing each foot in front of the other. I would make sure to tell Jack about how Nola walked at nine months, because he should know. Because when she grew older, she’d want to know that somebody remembered it enough to tell others.

  “What’s that sound?” Nola asked.

  I paused, trying to hear whatever Nola was. “What sound?”

  “It’s like bells ringing or something.”

  I’d lived in Charleston long enough that I rarely heard the bells of the numerous churches that rang throughout the city in fifteen-minute intervals. “It’s bells—church bells. We have so many churches here in Charleston that it’s known as the Holy City.”

  Her boots clomped heavily on the sidewalk. “Sort of like Las Vegas being called Sin City, huh?”

  I watched my mother try to hide a smile as she brushed away yellow lantana escaping through a wrought-iron fence on Rutledge Avenue. I peeked inside the gate as I passed, noticing the creeping heliotrope and yellow bells displayed in riotous confusion alongside immaculate brick paths. I remembered a time when the only flower I could name was a rose, yet I’d somehow become a person who demanded to have wisteria and tea olives in her garden because of their spring scents and the way the purple blooms of the wisteria draped the old walls of my beloved city as early as March. When I’d lived all over the world with my father, I always remembered the wisteria, even though I couldn’t name it. I think Charleston in the spring is what eventually brought me home.

  Nola continued. “What do they call LA?”

  I caught my mother’s eye as we both recalled how my father referred to it as the land of fruits and nuts. To distract Nola, I said, “Do you smell the Confederate jasmine?”

  She gave an exaggerated sniff. “I smell perfume.”

  “Exactly.” I lifted a cluster of the star-shaped white flowers that clung to a low brick wall. “Is this what you’re smelling?”

  Leaning down with her hands on her torn and ratty stockings and her thin
legs shoved into combat boots, her shiny black hair tucked carefully behind her ears, she cut a dramatic picture as she smelled the flowers. I wished I had a camera so that I could show Jack. She sniffed deeply, then surprised me by smiling broadly.

  “Wow. It’s like a perfume bottle.” She scrunched her eyebrows together. “I don’t think we have flowers in LA.”

  I noted her use of present tense, but didn’t comment on it. We were almost at Julia Manigault’s house and she was going willingly. I didn’t want to give her a reason to balk now, since I didn’t know whether my mother and I could physically drag her kicking and screaming up the stairs. Not that I was overly eager to go inside the house again and mingle with the living or nonliving residents. But when I remembered the burned rug and chiseled wall in my mother’s house, I knew this was yet another spirit I couldn’t ignore. Maybe it would be easier this time, since I wasn’t related to these spirits; nor did I have a vested interest in anything the ghosts might be clinging to. Bonnie was another matter entirely, but I’d deal with her later.

  We climbed the porch steps, but before I could ring the doorbell my mother grabbed my arm. “Do you feel it?”

  I nodded. Icy pinpricks had been racing down my spine since we’d turned the corner onto Montagu Street.

  “It reminds me of Rose,” she said, recalling the last ghost we’d put to rest, who hadn’t been all that happy to go. “Remember, Mellie. We’re stronger than them.”

  I nodded again, then rang the bell. While waiting for Dee to answer the door, I stole a glance at Nola. She stood with both combat boots planted firmly on the floor, her jaw jutting forward as if heading out to battle. But the slight lift at the corner of her mouth that looked suspiciously like a half smile surprised me. I thought about what Jack had told me about how Nola considered music her mother’s favorite child, and how she’d always felt like the ugly stepsister in comparison. Maybe she’d reconciled her presence here by thinking that this could be her chance to master this sibling rivalry and finally lay it to rest.

  The sound of approaching footsteps inside focused our attention back to the door, but as I heard the dead bolts being slid open, I looked back at Nola and saw Bonnie standing behind her, a similar smile on her lips. Her eyes met mine for a brief moment before she disappeared, and for the first time in my life I understood what a ghost was trying to tell me without having to speak a word. In that brief second I’d felt the power of a mother’s love, a certainty that it could transcend death, and I knew that Nola had felt it, too. Felt it enough, perhaps, to make her walk into Julia Manigault’s house when Dee Davenport opened the door.

  “You’re early! Miss Julia will appreciate that. Can’t stand for anybody to be late. Come in, come in,” she said, ushering us into the musty foyer. “I’ve got refreshments in the rear parlor, where you ladies are welcome to stay when Miss Julia and Nola retire to the music room.”

  Nola sent a panicked look at us, prompting my mother to speak up. “Actually, I was hoping to sit in on her first lesson. Perhaps by understanding how Miss Julia will be instructing Nola, I can help her with her practicing at home.”

  Dee tucked her chin into her ample neck. “You’ll have to speak with Miss Julia about that. She normally doesn’t like—”

  My mother interrupted her. “She’ll allow me.” Her words were soft, but her meaning was clear. Dee’s jowls warbled with disapproval as she led us back through the long hallway toward the creepy Christmas room.

  I watched as my mother took in the dark paneling and somber tones of the house, the heavy furniture and closed drapes, the cobwebs and dust. There were no zebra rugs or neon upholstery, like she’d found in her house when she’d purchased it, but when she glanced back at me I could almost see her mind working as she redecorated each room as we passed. I shook my head quickly just to let her know that I had no interest in traveling down that path once again.

  As before, Miss Julia sat in her wheelchair, a gray blanket thrown over her legs despite the warm temperature. “Emmaline. I’m glad you saw reason and chose to come.” She nodded at my mother and me as we greeted her. “Ladies,” she said, indicating a sofa and a horsehair-covered chair with a refreshment tray set up on a low coffee table.

  My mother perused the room, taking in the Santas and snowmen and all the red and green glittery things that decorated the room like confetti. “I remember how much you loved Christmas. I used to love to go to your room for my lessons because it was always Christmas there.”

  With slightly trembling hands, Julia lifted a bone teacup with a holly pattern around the lip. “My father didn’t believe in celebrating Christmas. Called it pagan. I suppose that was my one rebellion, although I didn’t start until after he’d been dead for several years, so I don’t know whether it could even be called that.”

  Nola eyed the plate of cookies. “Are these made with sugar?”

  “Of course, Emmaline,” Julia snapped. “Why? Are you diabetic?”

  “No. Ma’am.” She added this last after my mother sent her “the look.” I waited for Nola to explain her dietary requirements to the old woman and was relieved when she remained silent.

  “So,” I said. “How would you like to do this? My mother would like to sit in on the lesson and can walk Nola home. I have an appointment in an hour, so I’ll be leaving early.”

  Miss Julia pursed her lips, and if I’d been younger, I might have been afraid waiting for her next words. With apparent effort, she forced a smile that looked more like a grimace. “Ginnette, I have a stack of music on the small table by the door. Please take them with you now and show them to Nola in the music room. I’d like to speak with Miss Middleton for a moment.”

  I watched as my mother stood, then hesitated only for a moment before picking up the short stack of worn music books. She wasn’t wearing her gloves, and I knew the moment she touched them that they were trying to tell her something. She stood very still for a long moment as she squeezed her eyes shut, her knuckles white where she clutched the stack, her lips moving silently. She seemed to mentally shake herself, forcing her eyes open again. Turning toward Nola, she quickly handed the books to her. “Take these.”

  Nola took them without complaint while regarding my mother curiously. I hadn’t yet had a chance to explain my mother’s abilities but figured I might not have to now. They began walking toward the open doorway before my mother stopped and turned back to Miss Julia.

  “Your brother, William. Did he play the piano?”

  The old woman’s face stilled, her skin the color of parchment. “Yes. He was very good—much better than I. Those were his books, actually. Not that he needed them. He needed to hear a song only once and he could play it perfectly note for note. I always needed the music.” She paused briefly. “Why do you ask?”

  My mother met her gaze. “Just curious.” Clearing her throat, she said, “Nola and I will go through the books, looking for good vocal selections and scales to get started. We’ll wait for you there.”

  She ushered Nola from the room, Dee following and closing the door behind them.

  I stared into my teacup, recalling the image of the man in the upstairs window and the impressions I’d received from the dollhouse. I wondered if it was William, and waited for Julia to tell me about him, and what my mother might have seen when she touched his music books. When Julia didn’t say anything, I prompted, “What did you want to tell me?”

  She didn’t answer right away. “Emmaline is very gifted. She needs instruction, especially if she hopes to enter Ashley Hall in the fall.”

  I popped a key lime cookie into my mouth and chewed thoughtfully. “I guess that might be part of it. But I’m thinking the other part has to do with the dollhouse.” I paused for emphasis, waiting for her expression to tell me something. It didn’t. “Why did you give it away?” A rush of cold air brushed the back of my neck, but I didn’t take my gaze away from Julia.

  Her lips moved as if she were chewing her words before actually speaking. “There was
something . . . not quite right with it.”

  “Haunted, do you mean?”

  Her dark eyes widened. “Yes. I suppose you could say that. Things being moved around, figures posed in improbable positions. I told my father to get rid of it.”

  I wondered how much further I could go, and decided to press on. “That was 1938, the same year your brother disappeared, right?”

  Two spots of color formed on her cheeks. “Yes, but they’re not related. My brother finally got tired of not quite meeting our father’s expectations, so he left.”

  “He just left?”

  Julia nodded. “Yes. I heard them arguing that last night he was home, and then . . . he was just gone.”

  “Did you ever hear from him again?”

  I had to lean forward to hear her answer.

  “No.”

  I sat back in my chair. I could leave now, and continue with the ruse that Nola was here simply to explore her musical abilities. Or I could try to bring peace to the restless spirits that hovered around Julia Manigault, whether or not she wanted to acknowledge them. I recalled Nola telling me that she thought helping spirits move on was a cool thing. I still wasn’t completely convinced, but I couldn’t deny the satisfaction that I’d gotten from sending Mary Gibson and my Hessian soldier into the light, and couldn’t help but wonder whether that dollhouse had been put in my path for a reason. After all, there were lots of things in my life that defied explanation: my ability to see ghosts and to resist Jack Trenholm’s charms being just two of them.

  But if Julia wanted me there for a reason, I needed her to ask me. I wasn’t so gung ho about ghostbusting that I’d volunteer my services. Maybe, if I was lucky, I’d misunderstood her intentions. I placed my teacup and saucer on the coffee table. “What do you need from me, Miss Manigault?”

  She seemed to shrink even smaller into her wheelchair, as if asking for help had somehow diminished her. “It is my understanding that you . . . communicate with the dead. I want to speak with my brother, William.”