by Teresa Rae
When the footsteps draw near, I step out of the bush. “Can I talk to you for a minute?” I say, trying to hold my nerves in check.
He simply ignores me, not even breaking his stride.
My nerves turn to anger. I don’t know who this jerk thinks he is, but I’ve had enough! I decide to follow him home so I know whose house to egg.
I have to walk quietly but quickly to keep up with him and remain unseen. This is difficult because his legs are a lot longer than mine. Fortunately, he doesn’t turn around, even when I trip over a stick.
After several minutes of tailing him, my legs are tired, and I’m questioning my own sanity. I’m following an incredibly handsome guy home so I can enact revenge on him and his friends for singing in the morning. It sounds more than just a little crazy. I guess I’ve really gone off the deep end.
I’m about ready to turn around and go home, when the guy walks up a path and disappears into a large house out in the middle of nowhere. A few moments later, a light turns on in an upstairs bedroom.
“No way,” I say aloud.
I angrily go to the door and knock as loudly as I can.
A silver haired lady in a bright muumuu answers the door.
“Becky Jo, what are you doing here at this hour? Is there something wrong?” Sunny asks with confusion.
“I followed one of those guys who wakes me up and found he lives here – with you! Why didn’t you tell me he lives with you?” I demand.
“Have you hit your head?” She inspects my face. “No one lives here except me and my cat, Homer.”
“Every single morning these three guys walk past my room, one of them belting out Dixie as they go, they dig all day in that dry field across the street, the two black guys leave sometime in the afternoon, and then the white guy walks home by himself. I saw him go into your house and the light upstairs turn on!” I say with frustration.
“If it makes you feel better, I will show you no one’s in that room.” Sunny opens the door, inviting me in. “I’ve wanted to show you my latest project anyway.”
I follow her into the house and suck in a deep breath of air. The foyer is even more spectacular.
“I just stained the staircase this week,” Sunny says proudly as she runs her hand along the banister.
“You’ve done a beautiful job,” I reply truthfully.
She smiles before saying, “I assume you want to see the front bedroom?” I nod as she leads me to a closed bedroom. “Go ahead. You’ll see no one but spiders has lived in that bedroom for over a hundred years.”
I open the door, and find a small oil lamp lit in the corner and a pair of work boots at the foot of the bed. I grab Sunny’s arm. “He’s right there!” I whisper, pulling out a new cell phone from Marina. “In the bed! I told you he was living here! I think we should call the police!”
Sunny’s brows furrow. “Becky Jo, no one’s in that room.”
“Are you blind?” I demand. “He’s sleeping in the bed! He didn’t even bother to take off his work clothes!”
Sunny’s eyes open wide as though she’s had some sort of epiphany. “Maybe I am blind. Describe this man to me.”
“Curly brown hair, brown eyes, handsome, a lot taller than me,” I say irately.
She quietly shuts the door. “And his friends, what do they look like?”
“One is skinny and walks with a limp. He’s the one who’s always singing. The other is huge, like giant huge, and really serious. All three are total jerks. I’ve asked them to stop the singing, and they ignore me, and now one of them is trespassing in your house. Do you think he’ll wake up before the police arrive?”
Sunny’s eyes remain wide as she takes away my phone before I can dial 911. “Becky Jo, this is important. Has anyone ever told you about what it means to be born with the veil?”
“Mama was always going on about me being special because I was born with the veil, but I don’t know how that has anything to do with some guy sleeping in your house!”
“First,” she points at the closed door, “that’s not just any guy. That is Colonel James Blair. And second, it’s his house.”
I shake my head. “He’s too young to be a colonel, and this is definitely your house. I mean you pay the taxes and everything.”
“He’s not too young to be a colonel in the Confederate cavalry, in his day anyway. And yes, it’s my house now, but it was his house first.”
“I don’t understand…”
“Becky Jo, did you know you were born with the veil?”
“I already told you, Mama said I was. She would have known because she was there when I was born. What does this have to do with anything?”
“Some people are born with a sixth sense. Sometimes they have dreams of the future and see the other side. You have this sixth sense, or as many people call it, ‘the sight’. And you can unquestionably see ghosts. I don’t know how much plainer I need to be.”
“But it’s just an old wives’ tale. Mama was always telling me that I had the sight, but I thought it meant I could see the future?”
“Yes, and ghosts,” she says.
“Ghosts are supposed to be white, transparent, and shimmering. And I’ve never ever seen the one haunting Marina’s house. Besides, this guy’s not any of those things. I’ll wake him up and prove to you that he’s not a ghost.”
Sunny stops me from turning the door knob. “Colonel Blair lived a short and sad life. Let the poor man get what little peace he can. This can be settled another way. I have a couple photos of Colonel Blair on the mantel. It’s easier to identify him with them than to make a ghost angry.”
I relent and follow her downstairs. I’ll prove to her, once and for all, the guy trespassing in her house isn’t some dead Confederate colonel.
“Here it is.” She takes a golden frame off her mantel and hands it to me. “This is a glass-plate ambrotype of James as a private when he first entered the Confederate Cavalry with his father, Captain John Blair. It took me a lot of work to acquire this.”
I gasp when I see the photo. I would recognize those haunted eyes anywhere.
“It’s him, isn’t it?” Sunny asks.
“He looks different, younger. Maybe this Colonel Blair has a great-grandson who’s been bothering me?” I say hopefully.
She shakes her head.
“He never married. He was only fourteen when this picture was taken.” Passing me another picture frame off the mantel, she continues, “This picture was taken in December of 1864, a couple months before his seventeenth birthday and the end of the war. As you can see, he is a highly decorated soldier at that time. With his experience with horses and his natural leadership skills, he was quickly advanced through the Confederate ranks.”
I fight to keep my hands from trembling. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that this is the same guy who’s been walking past my window each day.
“What happened to him?” I barely whisper, still trying to find a way to convince myself that Sunny is somehow wrong and this is all some crazy mistake.
She pulls a chair out for me and we both sit at her dining room table. “I’ve been researching this house while I’ve been fixing it up, and the Blairs are a mysterious family. It’s been hard finding information about them. It’s strange, but I’ve found very little about them for being such an important family in Virginia City. Most of what I know is based on speculation. However, it’s best if I start at the beginning with the facts.
“James’s father, John Blair, was a prominent plantation owner near New Orleans. He married a beautiful French woman named Emily. Not even a year into their marriage, Emily died in childbirth, but the child survived. Without a mother, James was raised by his Great-Aunt Mary. In 1859, John abruptly freed his slaves and sold his family’s vast plantation. He generously split the money with his younger brother, Samuel, and invested his share in Comstock Lode. He left James with Mary in New Orleans and came west. He was one of the original stockholders of the extremely lucrative mines in
Virginia City and was a very rich man before the start of the Civil War. In 1862, he went back to Louisiana for James and was called up by the Confederates. James was only fourteen when he followed his father to war.”
“Why?” I ask.
She shrugs her shoulders. “Not even the historians agree, but I have my suspicions. However, we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Being a true Southerner, John was drafted into the cavalry, leaving his only son James to manage the mines from thousands of miles away. The irony is that, had John retained twenty of his slaves, he would have been exempt from the Confederate draft. Still, he hoped the war would end quickly to spare his son having to fight. James, however, had other plans. He signed up and was soon fighting, side-by-side, with his father.”
“But he was so young, why did he sign up?” I reword my previous question.
“I suspect his father was his whole world. James’s mother died when he was so young that he couldn’t bear being separated from John, too.”
“Who took care of the mines?” I ask the obvious.
“John’s younger brother, Samuel, eventually made his way to Virginia City, and he would have been more than happy if both his brother and nephew had died in battle. John had given his younger brother an impressive inheritance, but, from what I’ve read, he squandered it and wanted John’s mines. I’m sure he celebrated the day he received word that John had been killed in the Battle of Chancellorsville. What he didn’t expect was what James did next. He had the audacity of becoming a war hero and not just among Southerners.
“After John died, James seemed to lose all will to live. He went into battle like a lion. That, and his dashing good looks, made him an instant favorite in the Southern newspapers. But that wasn’t all; he fought like a lion and then showed such compassion and mercy to the wounded Union soldiers afterward that the Union papers began printing pictures of him as well. They called him ‘Gentleman James.’ When he was wounded and captured during Sheridan’s Ride, his Yankee captors actually saluted him and gave him a horse to ride. While he was a prisoner of war, he was hailed a hero and received visits from many of the prominent Union officers, including President Lincoln. When the war ended, he symbolized the prodigal son being joyfully welcomed home. He was even paraded down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington D.C. with the victorious Union troops. The southerners forgave him of all this because he had been a prisoner of war at the time. When he returned to New Orleans, he was given a hero’s welcome. Then he rode as quickly as he could to Virginia City to retake control of his father’s investments in Virginia City.”
“What did Samuel do?” I ask.
“Samuel had grown accustomed to running the mines and the money he had squandered of James’s in the process. He was jealous of his nephew and refused to take orders from him. When James had had enough of Samuel, he put his foot down. Samuel lashed out in the only way he knew how – he murdered him.”
I gasp, covering Colonel Blair’s picture with my hands in a feeble attempt to shield him from an act that had happened long before my time.
Sunny continues, “He was such a coward that he didn’t dare face him. Instead, he put a bullet in his head while he slept. James never woke.”
“Did Samuel go to prison?”
She shakes her head. “He accused someone else of the crime.”
“Who?” I demand.
Sunny looks sadly at me. “You know them already. Samuel accused James’s loyal friends. The same ones he digs with each day.”
“No…” My voice trembles.
“Yes, James was such a hero that the locals didn’t even wait for a trial. They strung those poor men up in a tree and hung them. Samuel got everything he wanted: his nephew out of the way, the mines, and no witnesses.”
I blink the tears out of my eyes.
She nods slightly. “The other miners called the large man ‘Big Gabe’ and from what I’ve read about him, Gabriel was extremely intelligent. Being born to a free woman, he was given every advantage. He could read and write better than most white men at the time. He could have run the mines every bit as well as John and better than Samuel. Gabe and John were also best of friends. I suspect he was the reason John sold his slaves, but the loyalty ran both ways. When John went to war, James wasn’t the only one to follow. Gabe dutifully played the pretend role of his slave, tending his horse and cooking for him. When John died, Gabe watched over James.”
“So, Samuel killed James and framed John’s best friend for it?” I wipe more tears off my face.
“It was the easiest way to get rid of both of them. He brought James’s body to town and rounded up a drunken mob. Gabe, and James’s friend, Henry, were pulled away from the dance they had gone to and were lynched that same night. It was said that Gabe cursed Samuel as the rope was put around his neck. He promised him that he would never know peace again. Within three years, Samuel shot himself in the head in one of the very mines he had run for his brother.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Colonel Blair, Gabe, and Henry never left this land. They have relived the last day of their lives for over a hundred years, and Samuel couldn’t deal with their presence.”
I think for a couple minutes. “Sunny, that’s a really sad story, but I’m not completely convinced I have...”
She lifts a hand to stop me. “It’s late. Why don’t I walk you home?”
Because of my recent experiences with being haunted, the talk of ghosts has greatly disturbed me. I walk very close to Sunny the distance to my house. Images of the three guys run through my head, leaving me with more questions than answers.
“Sunny, I’m not admitting I can see ghosts. But if I can, why didn’t I see them in Charleston?”
“I suspect you did, but you were too young to realize what they were. Also, watching your mama die has brought the other side very close to you.”
“I don’t understand why I would be able to see some ghosts and not others,” I say, thinking of the ghost waiting for me at Marina’s house.
“Apparently, some don’t want you to see them.”
It’s a lot to take in. I argue, “But I don’t want to see these things. I have enough of my own problems. I don’t want to see the pain and sorrow in their eyes each and every day.”
“Being born with the veil is very rare. Getting the sight is even rarer. Not everyone who is born with the veil gets the sight – this makes you very special. I can only wish I had the power you do.”
“I don’t have power.”
“Really? Then tell me what you see.” She points to an old tree a hundred feet away.
I scream, covering my mouth with my hands to blot out the sound.
Swaying from the thick branches of the tree are two black men.
“I knew it!” Sunny exclaims. “You have the sight!”
“It’s them! It’s Gabe and Henry!” I cover my eyes.
“That is the Hanging Tree. That’s where they received ‘justice.’”
“But Samuel killed Colonel Blair,” I object.
“Do you really think the mob cared about the truth? They were using whatever they could to justify their own murderous desires.”
“Do you seem them?” I ask, pointing to the horrific scene in front of me.
“Only at certain times of the year, I don’t have the talents you have.”
“I wish I couldn’t see them.” I turn away from the ghastly scene. Being able to see ghosts means absolutely nothing because I can’t do anything to help them. They’re already dead.
* * *
I practice my violin late into the night, until Marina goes to bed and I can play no longer. Then I am alone with what I have been trying to avoid all night: an unseen ghost and my thoughts. After witnessing the Hanging Tree, I remained silent during the remainder of my walk with Sunny. She talked on and on about the countless ghosts haunting Virginia City. Now, all I can think about is how many of the people I thought were costumed actors possibly aren’t actors at all. Virginia City has fr
ightened me since I arrived. I was right to be frightened. I live in a town of ghosts, and I’m the only one who can see them.
I am still contemplating the latest turn of events when the air in my room turns cold – very cold. I can see my breath as I breathe. I start to shiver just as my lights begin flickering on and off. I am no longer alone. My chest tightens as something invisible constrains my body. My mind screams with fear, but I can’t open my lips to verbalize my feelings. I can’t see my visitor, but somehow, I know he’s there. Things start flying off my bookshelves, and eerie laughter from a familiar voice causes chills to go up my spine. I am frozen with fear as I watch my room being torn apart. The words of a prayer by William Penn fill my mind. O God, help us not to despise or oppose what we do not understand. I try to keep this in mind in an attempt to chase away my fear.
Right before dawn, the specter leaves me shivering on my bed. I collapse in a pile of fear and exhaustion.
Twenty minutes later, I hear footsteps outside my window accompanied by someone singing Dixie. I fearfully peek out my window. Colonel Blair, Gabe, and Henry appear as they do each morning, walking down the path with their hoes. Like always, they don’t notice me. I think I’ve lost my mind, until Henry’s eyes quickly flicker towards my window. They definitely know I’m here, and they know I can see them. My life just took another nightmarish turn.
“Becky Jo, what have you done in here?” Sunny exclaims as she walks into my room.
“What can you tell me about Henry?” I quickly ask.
“Oh,” Sunny says, pursing her lips. “He visited you last night.”
“Visit is the wrong word. Henry haunted me last night, scaring me out of my wits.”
“I’m surprised. Henry has always been such a peaceful spirit.” She starts picking up books.
“My room looks like it’s been hit by a hurricane! Henry isn’t exactly peaceful,” I say with frustration. “Why would he do this?”
Sunny shakes her head. “We’ll need to do some research. Ghosts always have reasons for doing what they do. Take the spirit, Rosie, down at the Gold Hill Hotel. She’s always moving guests’ keys around because she was a former housekeeper. We just need to find out what Henry’s doing.”
