Reborn

by Lisa Collicutt

  “I should think, none.”

  She eyed me with one corner of her mouth pursed. “You probably listened to country before your amnesia.”

  Melba’s laughter lightened the sudden dark mood I found myself in. But I barely heard it, because when the soles of my sneakers hit the gravel, a noticeable chill shot through my feet, into my veins, then rushed through my body. A heavy weight settled upon me like a giant boulder. The nightmare I’d had on my first night in the apartment flashed through my mind, filling my heart with the misery of the innocent. Pain throbbed at my temples, but I didn’t say anything to Melba. As I neared the mansion, the foreboding worsened to the point where I felt like someone else walked for me, breathed in my breath, saw from my eyes.

  “Here we are,” Melba said turning the key in the door handle. Her voice sounded like she spoke from somewhere else in the yard.

  She moved aside, motioning for me to go in ahead of her. The scent of fresh paint assaulted me when I first stepped inside. I stood in a large kitchen from another time period, everything as it once was. The small table had even been set for a slave’s dinner. As I gazed, wide-eyed, over the room, an image of the slaves came into view. Outside the windows, they toiled in the yard. And inside this room, the dark-skinned woman from my nightmare busied herself setting pies on a sill to cool. When she finished, she turned—her apron covered in floured handprints—and stared directly at me with saddened eyes.

  A light touch to my arm startled me. The image of the slave woman disappeared, along with the people outside.

  Melba stood in her place, a puzzled look on her face. “What?”

  “Um.” I couldn’t tell her what I saw. Maybe I didn’t even see it. “Nothing, I—”

  “You expected a more posh kitchen?”

  I didn’t know what she meant, but nodded.

  “This is where some of the slave women worked—the luckier ones, not that any were lucky, mind you. But the women who worked here were guaranteed at least one meal a day, and were sometimes able to sneak leftovers and peelings for stewing home to their families.”

  Melba slicked two fingers across the wooden countertop, then looked at them, seemingly satisfied. Anxiety, more than anything, filled me now. If helping Melba clean windows would get me out of this place sooner, then I was eager to get to the task.

  As if I knew where to go, I exited the kitchen first and found myself in a wide hallway. Instead of taking a left toward the grand staircase, I turned right toward the front door.

  “It’s this way.” Melba’s voice sounded far away again.

  I didn’t ignore her on purpose. Something pulled me in another direction. When I came to a hall table, I stopped, faced it, and gripped the edges of the highly polished mahogany. Although I tried keeping my focus on the table, I knew what hung before me on the wall. The mirror beckoned, and I couldn’t resist the urge to look into the glass. As hard as I tried not to, a force beyond my control made me lift my gaze until it settled on the image in front of me. I felt some relief when I saw only myself staring back. But as I looked, my image wavered, and a similar one came into view. Hair grew in straggles onto shoulders that appeared beefier than mine. The nose belonging to the image grew sharper, and the lips turned into a hateful snarl. I tried to move, unlatch my grip from the table, but fright paralyzed me.

  The evil Solomon stared back at me.

  Behind the wave of fear that fell over me, starting at the top of my head like a tight-fitting shirt, his essence poured downward, pushing against my skin. The vile entity covered my face, smothering me, and for a moment, I couldn’t breathe. When I did take my next breath, it was he who breathed for me. Down over my skin, the invisible tightness crawled.

  Against my will, my left hand lifted from the table and reached toward the wall beside the mirror. My gaze followed. Inches from the bullwhip that hung there, my hand shook in the air as I fought the urge to grab it, but I wasn’t in control of my body anymore. Anguished cries from outside suddenly filled the hallway. The bastard controlled my body, but left my mind free and fully aware of the actions I was about to take.

  To my right, I felt Melba’s presence. She mumbled something in another language. Haitian, a language I suddenly knew well. Other voices joined hers. She reached a hand in between me and the image of the evil Solomon. She bent closer and blew into her palm, coating the mirror with dust.

  The face in the mirror contorted into a mask of rage. Blue eyes turned black. In a frantic race to conquer, Melba traced an X into the dust. The chanting stopped abruptly, ending with a scorned warning. The evil image disappeared.

  My hand ceased its advance for the bullwhip, but the nerves in my palm reached out, urging me. The whip’s handle beckoned to me still. I longed to feel the power the weapon wielded.

  “Solomon.”

  Like waking from a nightmare, I was myself again. Without resistance, I lowered my arm and turned my head to the left. The beauty of Desiree standing in the wide, opened front doorway, haloed by sunlight, surrounded by greenery from the yard and the sounds of birds chirping, pushed the darkness away. My heart swelled. Despite the horror of a few moments ago, I matched her grin. As the two of us stood there staring at each other, Melba quickly shoved something into a front pocket of her jeans, messed her fingers through the mark on the mirror, disguising the X, and burst past me.

  “Desiree, what are you doing here?”

  Desiree’s smile dwindled somewhat as she looked at her aunt. “When I didn’t find you at the house, I thought you might be working today.”

  “You seem to be skipping a lot of school lately?”

  “Auntie Mel, I’m an adult. It’s okay if I miss a day,”

  “You’re barely twenty-one years old. That hardly constitutes you as an adult.”

  Desiree rolled her eyes and looked past her aunt to me. Blush stained her cheeks and the bridge of her thin nose. “Anyway, I was hoping I’d find you here, Solomon.”

  Melba, her face paled, issued me a warning look over her shoulder, as if telling me to keep quiet about what had just happened. She’d seen, and she, with the aid of invisible others, had crossed the evil entity as it tried to seize my body. I didn’t know how I knew, I just did.

  Melba seemed reluctant to let her niece into the house, but Desiree pushed past her and stopped in front of me. Determination sparkled in her eyes as she gazed up. She carried a bag in one hand, and a paper cup in the other; the odor of coffee rose in the steam from an opening in the lid.

  “I found out some stuff I thought you might be interested in hearing,” she said.

  To see her face and hear her voice again stirred up feelings. A door opened up somewhere deep inside of me to a place I didn’t know existed. It was a bright place, somewhere darkness couldn’t reach. Then I sensed Melba’s glare on us.

  “What did you find out?” I asked gently.

  “Can we go and sit down somewhere?”

  I glanced past Desiree to Melba.

  “The kitchen.” Melba stomped down the hall, leaving us to follow.

  Desiree gave me a shrug and said low, “What’s her problem?”

  “Rodents,” Melba yelled back before I had a chance to think up an answer.

  I would rather have gone outside, back to Melba’s, anywhere far from this eerie mansion, but instead, I followed the two women into the kitchen.

  There was no sign of the woman from my vision, or her pies. We sat at the small table in a bright area, surrounded by windows. Carefully, Melba pushed the old dishes to one side.

  Desiree leaned over the table in my direction; her lime green-shirt hung open, exposing two half-mounds of smooth flesh and a strip of white lace rounding each one. Staying focused on her delicate features became difficult, but I managed to lower my gaze to the large notepad she pulled out of her bag. She placed it on the table, half facing me, and pointed with a lilac fingernail to the first line of writing.

  “These are some of the accounts of the slave Harold Davis at eighty
-seven years of age, after he’d been free for thirty-seven years. Harold was sold to Joseph Brandt as a young boy for the Brandt Plantation. Right here.”

  As she spoke, she shared her gaze equally with me and the notepad. I watched her lips move with each word; when she looked up at me, I met her gaze.

  “Harold goes on to say how Joseph, Solomon’s father, beat Solomon and Joseph’s wife almost as much as he whipped his slaves. From what I read, Joseph was a cruel master, but Solomon became even crueler.”

  The name Joseph stuck in my brain like a dull ache.

  “Harold says, ‘Joseph died while Solomon was only fourteen.’ The cause of death isn’t official, but the rumor was that he owed a debt and debtors came to collect. His mother, Ruby, died of tuberculosis a couple years later. Solomon inherited this plantation when he was just sixteen years old.” Her gaze fell to the coffee cup at one side of the table. “I suppose back in those days, sixteen wasn’t so young.

  “Solomon had one sibling, a younger sister, Beth, who he sent to live at a neighboring plantation. Although Solomon was young, he was bitter and hated the world. By the time he reached twenty, he was known as the most ruthless plantation owner in the South. The Brandt slaves were given no materials for building, so they lived in shacks made from fallen trees and sticks, built under the moonlight, because they were forced to work during daylight hours. Their dwellings had no windows, no furniture, or cook stoves. Meals consisted of what they caught in streams and hunted in the forest. They had no time to grow their own gardens, because they worked the plantation from dawn until after dark. Their only vegetables were the ones not fit to cook for their master. From time to time, the slaves would run, but most would get caught… those, Solomon tortured, branded, raped.” Desiree shuddered. “The list of unspeakable deeds goes on.

  “Even the white folk feared him. They say, ‘The devil took his soul and he became a monster.’ By the time Solomon was in his mid-twenties, none of the locals would do business with him. Eventually, he drank and gambled away his inheritance, all but this land and what was on it.”

  The image of everything she’d said played in my head, as if I was there. “What happened to him?”

  “He was last seen in 1862 riding a white horse in Atlanta; supposedly he got struck down by bandits. He was twenty-eight.”

  Desiree’s tale felt too familiar. I didn’t want to hear any more.

  “But there’s no real account of his death. According to vital statistics, the family plot holds his empty grave.” A line formed in the space between her eyebrows. “Do you think you’re related to him?”

  Something inside me screamed yes, but I didn’t want to admit to the truth out loud. I glanced at Melba out of the corner of my eye. She hadn’t said a word during the account of Desiree’s findings. Her wide-eyed gaze focused on the bare table in front of her, as she quietly fingered the pendants that sat at the deep hollow below her neck.

  “Auntie Mel?”

  Still holding the pendants, Melba glanced up. “It’s possible, I guess.”

  Desiree leaned closer to the center of the table. “If he is, maybe he has a claim to this place.”

  “I don’t want it.” And I didn’t. Chills crawled up my back, as I felt the invisible slave woman’s eyes on me. I would rather live in the wild than spend any more time on these cursed grounds.

  “If you were a descendant of the first Solomon Brandt, you would have known so by now. In all the twenty-six, twenty-seven years of your life, someone would have told you. I would have known.”

  “How would you have known?” Desiree asked.

  “I work here, child. History would be different.”

  Desiree flopped against the chair’s backrest, looking a little disappointed, and even more suspicious. “So you don’t think he’s who he says he is?”

  Melba stood so abruptly, the side of her hand hit a mug, which rattled against a plate. With both hands, she grabbed the two, and then pulled them apart, a look of relief masking her concern. Then, giving us a stern look she said, “The windows won’t clean themselves. Is the history lesson over, Des?”

  The perplexed look Desiree gave her aunt made me wonder why Melba wanted this meeting to end sooner rather than later.

  “There’s one more thing,” Desiree said in measured words, while reaching inside her bag.

  When she pulled out her hand, she held another piece of paper and sat it in the center of the table.

  Melba’s hands flew to her pendants.

  I stared in horror as the picture of a painting of a man who looked nearly identical to me stared back.

  Both women looked from the picture to me.

  “Seems pretty undeniable to me,” Desiree said with a pointed look at me. “You’re related.”

  “Nonsense,” Melba said tapping the picture with the tips of her fingers. “Look at the hair. Not even close.”

  Desiree cocked her head and pursed her lips.

  “Only the length is different.” She looked down at the picture. “But the eyes.” She lifted the paper and pointed to it. “The eyes are identical.”

  Scarily identical.

  “Can we have a look around?” she asked her aunt.

  “No. I have to get to work.” Melba walked toward the kitchen door, and then looked back. “Solomon.”

  “I’m sorry. I have to go.” I gave Desiree an apologetic look and reluctantly turned away from her.

  But the soft touch of her hand on my wrist stopped me in my tracks. I glanced down my arm at her hand, then to her face, and the desperate look it held. The luster in her eyes brightened. She looked as if she wanted to say something, but didn’t.

  Her desperation worked its way inside me, and I wanted to stay in this moment as much as I felt she did, but Melba called again, her voice a distance away now.

  Desiree lifted her hand from my outstretched arm. She scooped up the papers and shoved them inside her bag, then looked at me, smiling.

  “Well, I hope you find yourself, soon.”

  “Thanks for,” I looked at the empty spot in the center of the table where moments ago my likeness had been, “everything.”

  “Hey, I can wait for you and we can talk more about the infamous Solomon Brandt,” she said, as if it was a headline, “if you like.”

  “Somehow, I don’t think your aunt would approve.”

  “It’s not like she’s your master and you’re her slave, right?”

  She giggled, and I got the feeling that giggle might just have been the first that kitchen had ever seen.

  “Well, no, but she’s done so much for me, and…” And Melba was security. I trusted her, but I wanted more than anything to spend time with Desiree. “She needs my help.”

  A loud crunch of gravel, coming from outside, made both of us turn to the window.

  “Shit,” Desiree said with a look of surprise on her face. “It’s a tour bus.” She flicked her gaze to me. “Someone must have gotten the schedule mixed up.”

  ossibly more people than I’d ever seen exited the bus, filling up the parking space. The sounds of their conversations reached the kitchen. Looking as desperate as I felt, Desiree grabbed my hand and pulled me into the hall.

  “Who are those people?” I asked as my heart pounded faster than usual.

  Were they coming for me?

  “Oh, they’re a tour group, but I’m sure they aren’t supposed to be here today, or else Auntie Mel got her dates wrong.”

  We were nearly at the end of the second hallway, far from the grand staircase, when Desiree made a turn to the right and pulled me into an open doorway, which led to a large room, decorated in dark paneling and gold velvet drapes.

  Once inside, I released the tight grip I had on her hand and closed the heavy, six-paneled door behind us.

  The next moment was a blur. Working fast, I reached behind a small statue of a man on a horse, which sat on a table beside the door, opened a small wooden box I found there, and picked out a brass key. With my right han
d, I already had the brass key plate slid aside on the door. I slipped the key into the hole and turned it until I heard the click I was waiting for.

  When I turned, Desiree’s wide-eyed gaze met mine.

  “What?” I said.

  Her green eyes looked as if they were about to fall from their sockets, as her hands gripped the straps of her bag, turning her knuckles white.

  I stepped closer. “What’s wrong?”

  “Do you even know what you just did?” Her voice was low, almost a whisper. Her stunned gaze fell to my hand.

  As if just waking from a dream, I looked at the key, still held between my fingers, with the feeling I’d lost something, a recent memory.

  Desiree dropped her bag onto a tapestry-covered sofa and came closer. She took the brass object from my grip and held it up between us.

  “You just dug this key out of its hiding place and unlocked that…” she hesitated, as if considering her next words, “somewhat complicated lock, like a pro.” Then, exhibiting a dubious look, she said, “Have you been here with Auntie Mel before?”

  “No. Today is the first time.”

  “Somehow, I don’t think this is your first time here. Maybe before your memory loss?”

  I shrugged, searching myself for an inkling of memory to put truth to her speculations. But the only thing that came to mind was closing the door behind us, and then holding the key, door already locked.

  Desiree’s eyebrows knitted together. “Hmm.”

  She handed me the key, and I slipped it into a front pocket of my jeans.

  “Well, looks like we’re stuck here for a bit. This is one room the tour guide won’t be able to show.” Her fresh smile lit up the dull space.

  She walked to the front wall of windows, which showcased the columns on the receiving balcony and the long driveway beyond, and started closing drapes.

  I got the hint and helped.

  “Can’t have tourists peeping inside,” she said in a lighter tone.

  Once the curtains were closed, the room was dark enough; I could just make out the outlines of things, including the long curls framing Desiree’s upper half.

  She took out her cell phone and held it outward, shining the display light around the room, stopping when the glow fell on a table beside the sofa, and the oil lamp that sat on top of it.