House on the Forgotten Coast

by Ruth Coe Chambers

  HOUSE

  on the

  FORGOTTEN

  COAST

  OTHER BOOKS BY

  RUTH COE CHAMBERS

  The Chinaberry Album

  Heat Lightning

  Copyright © 2017 Ruth Coe Chambers

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, digital scanning, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, please address She Writes Press.

  Published 2017

  Printed in the United States of America

  ISBN: 978-1-63152-300-7 pbk

  ISBN: 978-1-63152-301-4 ebk

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2017937975

  Book design by Stacey Aaronson

  For information, address:

  She Writes Press 1563 Solano Ave #546

  Berkeley, CA 94707

  She Writes Press is a division of SparkPoint Studio, LLC.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, all incidents, and the houses and business establishments in Apalachicola are products of the author’s imagination and are used fictionally. Any resemblance to persons living or dead or to events are by coincidence.

  To my husband, Jack, without whom this book would never have left my computer

  This book began with a dream. I still remember it vividly, but I owe thanks to many people who encouraged me along the way. Ray Bradbury believed in the book and in the muse who wrote most of it. He was an inspiration and cheerleader always.

  PROLOGUE

  APALACHICOLA, FLORIDA

  ( May 1879)

  Annelise woke with a start and remembered it was her wedding day. She bit her quivering lower lip and looked around at the familiar room, but when she saw the doorknob turn she feigned sleep. It didn’t work. Ruby walked noisily into the room and dropped an orange tabby cat onto Annelise’s chest.

  “Ruby, how could you!”

  “You know better than to try foolin’ Ruby. You wasn’t sleeping, Annelise Lovett, not today you wasn’t.”

  “But it’s my last morning . . .”

  “It is, and you better be ‘bout your business. Your poor mama been up since dawn. She got Asberry and Joe putting candles in all the sconces in the ballroom, and then they be putting up tables in the hall to hold the food. Hattie and Corrine been working on that food since before day.”

  “Maybe I’ll tiptoe down the hall and have a peek in the door. Everybody’s being so secretive.”

  “You’re not doing no peeking in that ballroom, not ’til Mr. Coulton brings you back here as his wife. Miss Agnes wants it to be a surprise.”

  “Did Mrs. Bell make the wedding cake?”

  “Didn’t I just tell you your mama wants you to be surprised? You know how busy Mrs. Bell is, running a bakery and a hotel to support her family. Poor soul.”

  “But she made my friend Sora’s wedding cake and . . .”

  “I don’t know nothing about Sora’s wedding. I will tell you Mrs. Bell will be bringing some food from her bakery. She makes all those beautiful things, and her poor blind husband can’t see a single bit of it.”

  “He wasn’t always blind, was he?”

  “No, not always. Happened in the war. Breaks your heart for him and her both. But come on now. We got rain water warming and your mama want you to get that mass of hair washed so you can dry it in the early sun. You know it take forever to dry.”

  “I need my coffee. I’m no good without my coffee.”

  “Miss Agnes says you gon’ have your coffee downstairs today.”

  “Oh, Ruby, I wish you were coming with me to my new house.”

  “You know Ruby can’t leave your mama. Miss Agnes ain’t never recovered from having a second baby when she was old as she was. What I’m wondering though is if you ain’t seen that house your papa had built for you, missy. You sure you ain’t sneaked out some dark night and taken a peek at it with that murdering scoundrel that built it?”

  “Ruby! You just imagine things. And nobody’s proved Seth is a murderer.”

  “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire, and if he’d murder, he’d show you that house.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Humph! I’m talking ‘bout where you sneak out to after dark, about what you done with the picture that scoundrel painted of you in your mama’s weddin’ dress.”

  “How dare you snoop into my private business!”

  “You go to the stable after dark, I want to know why.”

  “Don’t you go telling anybody about the painting, you hear?”

  “I thought maybe it’d be Mr. Coulton’s weddin’ gift.”

  “Just mind your own business. Oh, Ruby, I hope I’m doing the right thing.”

  “Your papa wouldn’t have you do it if it weren’t.”

  “I still can’t believe Seth . . . Ruby, do you think it’s possible to love two people, two men, at the same time?”

  “What a thing to be asking on your weddin’ day.”

  “Sometimes my heart says one thing and my head another. Papa never gave Seth a chance. I didn’t have a lot of say.”

  “Your papa the one with the say.”

  “I adore Coulton, but he’s older, and sometimes he treats me like a child.”

  “You is a child.”

  “Were you ever in love, Ruby?”

  “I may been colored all my life, but I ain’t always been old. I was seventeen once myself. I know what love feels like. Course a black seventeen’s older than a white seventeen.”

  “Now what’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You know what it means, missy. Don’t go playing innocent with me. You younger today than I ever was.”

  “I’m an adult. I’ll be eighteen next month, and I’m getting married, remember?”

  “You ain’t if you don’t climb out of that bed and get that hair washed.”

  “ANNELISE ! PUT FLYNNIE DOWN BEFORE he snags your dress. Next you’ll have that cat following you down the aisle. And do you really plan to wear a baby necklace on your wedding day?”

  “No, Mother, I just forgot. I’ve worn it as a bracelet since I was six years old when it got too tight for my neck.”

  “Hand it to Ruby. We need to go.”

  “No, just a minute.” She took the necklace from her arm, pulled Flynnie to her and slipped the chain around his neck. “My forever gift, Flynnie,” she said and kissed the star on top of his head.

  Her mother knelt and adjusted the folds of the skirt. “You were right. My dress is perfect. It looks better on you than it did on me.”

  “Of course it doesn’t, Mother. You were a beautiful bride. We have the painting to prove it.”

  “We’ll have your picture painted in it too, one day soon.” Ruby smiled, and Annelise cast her a withering look, daring her to say anything.

  Agnes Lovett blinked back tears and kissed her daughter’s cheek. “Oh, darling, how I’ll miss you.”

  “I’m not leaving Apalachicola, Mother. I’ll just be a few miles away. That much I know about my new house.”

  “It won’t be the same though. But come on, it’s time to leave for the church. Your father is waiting in the buggy out front now.”

  Annelise looked back at the servants and saw Ruby crying. “Be happy for me, Ruby, don’t cry.”

  “These be happy tears, missy. Happy tears.”

  “Well, they’d better be.” Annelise swallowed hard and walked down the front step
s, pausing to gaze at the sunlight reflected on the river. She fought the urge to run back to her room and get in bed. Where had the day gone?

  Then she was standing at the door of the Trinity Episcopal Church where she’d been christened and had no memory of getting there. She took a deep breath and looked up at the stenciled ceiling, realizing she was scared. Am I doing the right thing? Why, I hardly know Coulton! Maybe I’m not an adult after all.

  Her father tilted her chin with his forefinger. “You okay, sweetheart?”

  She shivered. “Somebody just walked across my grave, Papa.”

  “You have a case of wedding jitters. Here we go now.”

  The organist began the wedding march, engulfing the sanctuary in a giant wave of music that carried Annelise down the aisle on the arm of her father. Coulton was so handsome in his white suit, but when he turned and looked at her, she shivered again. The minister’s voice seemed far away, and then she was a wife. They ran down the church steps to Coulton’s buggy where he kissed her passionately.

  Annelise detected a hint of whiskey and stammered, “Why, Coulton, I never . . .”

  “Come, my love, no more chaperoning. You’re mine now. Didn’t your father just give you to me?”

  Annelise felt uneasy. She’d never known Coulton to be so bold, so different from the gentlemanly suitor she’d known.

  It was a short drive back to Annelise’s home, and when Coulton ushered her into the ballroom for the reception, her indrawn breath was testament to the remarkable job her mother had done. The wide double doors were usually kept locked, but tonight the floors gleamed, and garlands of ribbons and greenery were draped between the sconces and around the gilt-framed mirrors that lined the walls. Baskets of pink and white roses formed a backdrop for the musicians. Annelise kissed her mother and whispered, “Thank you,” before Coulton pressed her hand to his lips, and they glided onto the floor for the first dance. Others joined them and soon the room was filled with a kaleidoscope of dancing couples reflected in the oval mirrors.

  Mrs. Bell had indeed made the wedding cake. No one else could have created such a work of art. Annelise felt a pang of guilt when she and Coulton cut the first slice. Everyone seemed so happy. Why did her happiness seem more pretense than real?

  It grew dark, and Annelise watched as Asberry lit the candles in the sconces. “This has to be the shortest day of the year,” she confided to a friend just as Coulton walked up, snatched the glass of wine from her hand and began to drink from it.

  “Coulton, you made me spill wine on my dress.”

  “Sorry, darling. I had an uncontrollable urge to share what your lips had touched, and . . .”

  “It’s just that this was my mother’s dress . . .”

  “Coulton, over here,” Mr. Lovett called. “There’s someone I’d like you to meet.”

  “I won’t be long, darling,” Coulton said, but he was. When she tired of waiting, Annelise walked toward her room where she saw Flynnie rubbing against the door. “Now how did you get out of there?” She scooped him into her arms and walked into the moonlit room. She gasped when a voice whispered, “Annelise, it’s Seth. Close the door quick.”

  “But how . . .?”

  “I can’t explain except to tell you I’m not a murderer.”

  “What was I supposed to think, no good-bye, nothing!”

  “They were looking for me. I didn’t dare come here. I’m sorry. I’ve been in Alabama trying to unravel the riddle of a murder people believe involves me. When I saw an announcement in an old Alabama newspaper saying you were to marry Coulton Morgan, I started back right then but not soon enough to stop the wedding. We don’t have time to talk though. I’ll come for you later tonight at the riverboat house. It’s the best plan I could work out. Everybody will be there waiting for your reaction to seeing the house for the first time. I figure in all the confusion . . . but, Annelise, you must get away from Coulton. You’re in danger. Don’t go to your marriage bed. Plead illness, anything, and go to the hidden stairway. You remember, don’t you?”

  “Of course. I know that house like the back of my hand.”

  “I’ll come for you there, and we’ll leave together.”

  “But, Seth, I can’t. Papa . . .”

  “He’ll thank me when he finds out what I learned about Coulton. Go to the ballroom. Act like nothing has happened. I can’t save you if they catch me before I clear myself. Go!”

  Annelise started back to the reception, trying to still her trembling hands when she saw her mother at the top of the stairs.

  “Find Coulton, darling. This is the orchestra’s final number.”

  Numb with terror, Seth’s words rang in her head. Act like nothing has happened. Annelise rushed downstairs to her father’s study, thinking he and Coulton might still be talking. She paused just inside and saw Coulton with a woman near the moonlit window, her back to his chest, his hands cupping her breasts. She tried to stifle a gasp and ran back to the ballroom. Annelise hesitated at the door and saw Asberry trying to straighten a candle in one of the sconces. Asberry had been getting her out of trouble most of her life, and she rushed toward him as she heard Coulton calling her name. She looked back as she grabbed Asberry’s arm, jarring the burning candle from his hand. It bounced from his grasp, igniting her blue black hair.

  She screamed and raced for the door. The horror of the scene registered on Coulton’s face as he dropped the handkerchief he’d just touched to his lips and ran after her calling, “ANNELISE! ANNELISE!” The guests froze, certain she was heading for the river, never realizing she was running from her husband who continued calling, “ANNELISE! ANNELISE!”

  1

  APALACHICOLA, FLORIDA

  ( May 1987 )

  Echoing the balconies and curves of an old paddle wheeler, Annelise’s house reigned for more than a hundred years as the showplace of a small fishing village called Apalachicola. No matter who lived there, it would always belong to Annelise, but the realtor declined to share that knowledge with the new owners, Margaret and Edwin Foster. Not knowing themselves, the Fosters couldn’t tell their daughter, eighteen-year-old Elise, for who would have imagined the house was about to become a portal whereby two young women from different centuries would meet? Surely not Peyton Roberts, who passed the house every morning on his way to work. He never questioned why he always slowed the truck and tipped his hat to the memory of the lovely Annelise. Later he might have cause to wonder.

  But now, all over town people were stirring, getting ready for a new day. Peyton stood on the sidewalk in front of his shoe store and stretched, fingers laced high above his head. He was no longer young, but he was still a handsome man and just cocky enough to realize it. In the dim light he squinted at the newly refurbished store next to his and spit.

  In another part of town, Nadine Fletcher peered through the screen door at the padded rocker on her front porch. Gnarled hands, palms flat against the dirty screen, framed her face. Already the heat, as only Florida can brew it, seeped through each tiny square.

  A few miles away Dallas Anderson remained in bed, reluctant to start the day, her silver-streaked hair smooth as a cap on her eyelet pillowcase. She’d open one eye soon and remember she was a widow, but in the meantime, she’d draw a deep breath and think of something cheerful—like the welcome jolt of a cup of strong coffee.

  Peyton rolled his shoulders and twisted slightly to the right, looking toward the town’s one traffic light changing colors in the mist and the emptiness of a pre-dawn morning. Turning back to the left, he dropped his arms and sprinted down the street toward the Gorrie Bridge, eager to watch day break over the water, never tiring of seeing his day unfold like a shimmering net cast over the morning-still surface of the river.

  He stretched once more and then, hands on his hips, stood motionless, waiting for his day to begin.

  That he was alone remained an ever-present wound. He had no one to share the beauty of shrimp boats beginning their journey to the Gulf, no one by his side
as sparkling stars of sunlight went skimming across the surface of the water. He hadn’t planned it this way, never imagined himself the town’s lonely bachelor. He thought of Nadine Fletcher spending most of the last fifty years sitting in a rocker on her front porch. Had she grown accustomed to growing old alone, living all these years without her high school sweetheart beside her? Maybe he should ask her. He laughed to himself. Not a chance, old buddy. Hide your sorrow in your gut where it belongs.

  There were a lot of new people in town, but he didn’t look to any of them to ease his loneliness, not even the saucy divorcée who’d opened a jewelry store across the street and lined the sidewalk in front of the store with flower-laden wine barrels.

  “If one of them wine barrels comes through my window,” he’d warned her, “you’re paying every dime, not me.”

  “Why in the world would one of my wine barrels go crashing through your window?” she’d asked.

  “Y’all never heard of hurricanes up north? Ever see what wind at a hundred miles an hour or more can do to a house or tree, much less a wine barrel?”

  “In the first place, I’m not from ‘up north’ as you call it. And anyway, how often do you have hurricanes like that?”

  “Oh, it’s been a long time. A whole two years, I’d say. In ‘85 we had a couple of bad ones. I call ’em the holiday hurricanes. Elena paid us a visit near Labor Day. We thought that was bad enough, but then around Thanksgiving here comes Kate. Looked like she was hell-bent on destroying us. Those storms travel up and down this coast like it’s a major highway. Ask the people in Port St. Joe, ‘bout thirty miles down the road, what happens when a hurricane gives birth to a tidal wave. Get ’em to show you old St. Joseph—what’s left of it—that’s underneath the bay. September through November, keep your rosary handy.”

  Nobody had to tell her Peyton was among the residents who resented the recent changes that threatened to alter what was old, familiar, and comfortable into something trendy. Bright awnings, siding, and gallons of paint had transformed withered derelicts into jewels that sparkled among faded neighbors like Peyton’s Shoe Store.