Seven Sisters Collection

by M. L. Bullock

  like a divine power,

  tear out from my bleeding heart

  the thorn,

  And you will see a poor infant crying!

  Speak forever, and the storm

  that is going to batter my youth,

  will stop and carry its rage

  far from me,

  As soon as you will tell me:

  “For you, my word!”…

  Camille Thierry (1845)

  Chapter 1

  What would Detective Simmons think about Ashland and me digging in the garden of Seven Sisters on a moonlit night? She’d probably raise a ginger brow, lick the lead of her pencil and waste no time whipping out her notebook. Yet here we were, dressed in white like two ghosts, slinging dirt from a hole we dug in front of the Taygete statue. We’d been digging for ten minutes—the adrenaline was beginning to wear off now, and I was starting to worry that my hunch had been wrong. Dead wrong. That nagging voice in my heart that only spoke when something was going horribly wrong began whispering in my ear. I can’t believe you didn’t take the time to do some research first!

  I leaned against the shovel, trying to catch my breath. The sweat that covered my face and neck was like sweet nectar for an irritating chorus of Alabama mosquitoes. They apparently couldn’t resist it. It didn’t matter that it was coming up on midnight. It was still hot out. “Ashland, maybe we should come back in the daytime, bring a metal detector or something.”

  “Are you saying you were wrong? Could we be looking in the wrong place?” He leaned on the rusty handle of his shovel.

  I frowned. “No, I don’t think I’m wrong, but I want to be absolutely sure before we tear up all of TD’s work.”

  “That only seems fair!” Ashland and I looked up to see our contractor, Terrence Dale, standing just a few feet away. He watched us with his hands on his hips, a cross between amused and aggravated. “May I ask what the hell y’all are doing? Ashland, I know I just work for you, but this was my project. Why are you digging holes in the….” A sudden realization hit him. He knew what was happening. “What exactly are you looking for?”

  Ashland gave him an apologetic smile. “Sorry, TD. We didn’t want to do this in front of you. I know this sounds ridiculous, but Carrie Jo thinks she knows where the Cottonwood treasure is located. We have good reason to believe that it’s here, under or around the Taygete statue. I promise I’ll get the garden looking like it’s supposed to again if it takes me all week.”

  “Why here?”

  I swatted away mosquitoes and explained to him what I knew: in some of Calpurnia’s journals she referred to herself as T, which I believed stood for Taygete. I repeated her mother’s clue, Find your True Self, and you will Find a Treasure. Taygete was Calpurnia’s “true self.” She was a character that Calpurnia identified with, a doomed young woman with a long neck and an unkind father.

  “That makes sense, but I hate to tell you this—I moved the Taygete statue. It was over there,” he said as he pointed to an old hedge, “but to me it made more sense to put it here instead, more like the star alignment.”

  “So you’re telling me we’re digging in the wrong place?” I panted, tossing aside another shovelful of dirt.

  “That’s what I’m telling you. The original location was in there.” He pointed beyond the massive hedge, where I had seen Isla Beaumont meet Captain David Garrett. There had been a swing and maybe a statue or a fountain; I had not been paying attention—my eyes had been fixed on the ghost of Calpurnia’s cousin as she waited for her lover. She hadn’t wanted me there, that much I knew. I felt her presence again, on the edge of the garden, approaching slowly to see what the interlopers were up to. Maybe I was imagining things. I wasn’t a psychic—just a dreamer.

  I shuddered and thought of that old southern saying the old-timers used when hit with a sudden case of chills, A rabbit ran over my grave!

  “Come on,” TD said. “If you’re determined to look for something, don’t tear up the entire place. That hedge is pretty old, but if we go around to the other side, I can show you how to get in there.” We followed him through the thick bushes, forcing our way into the hidden clearing.

  There I was again—only this time I hadn’t slipped through a supernatural door. Only a broken stump of the old tree remained; the statue was gone, and no swing hung from the branches. I had touched that swing! I heard it creak, right? There was no scent of magnolias, just the heavy odor of dead leaves and dirt. I could feel her even closer. “Ashland, we’re not alone here.” I was talking about Isla, but that was before I saw someone step into the secret garden with us—it was Henri Devecheaux.

  “What are you doing here, Mr. Devecheaux?”

  His eyes were wide with fear as he stared at me. He didn’t say anything, then suddenly let loose a blood-curdling howl and fell to the ground as if he were dead. I tossed down the shovel and ran toward him.

  Devecheaux lay like a dead man on the thick green grass of the Moonlight Garden, but it was clear he was very much alive. His dark pupils were encircled with white, staring up into the vastness of the starry Alabama sky. Crouching near him, I put my head on his chest just to be sure—his heart was slow but steady.

  “We need to get him to a hospital, but I’m afraid to move him!”

  Suddenly the leaves in the garden shook loose from the oaks and magnolias that encircled the hidden clearing, pelting us with flowers and painful seed pods. The silky magnolia blooms blanketed everything with an unearthly white glow. I cleared the flowers off of Devecheaux’s face and said, “Mr. Devecheaux! Henri! What happened? Why are you here?”

  Through clenched teeth he said, “She’s coming!”

  “What? Who’s coming?” Ashland’s blue eyes were wide, and his hands shook. He got on his feet and looked around, unable to detect the intruder. But I had no doubt who was coming—and why.

  “We’ve got to find that treasure. It’s the only way to stop her!” I shouted at him over the sounds of rustling leaves and breaking tree limbs. My heart pounded in my chest, and I could hear an eerie buzzing in my ears like a hundred voices trying to speak at once. I let out a little sob but bit my lip, refusing to let fear paralyze me.

  “CJ! We have to get him out of here!” Ashland held his hand up to his face, trying to protect himself from a barrage of heavy foliage.

  “She’s not going to let us—we have to find the treasure, now!” I turned to TD, who appeared as frozen as the statue. He seemed completely unable to process what was happening. I felt sorry for him, but there was no time to explain. “TD! We have to dig! We have to find whatever it is that’s buried here. Please help me!”

  Digging into the ground like a madwoman, I tossed dirt as quickly as I could. This was a long shot, wasn’t it? How would we know where to dig? I had to go on blind faith, praying silently, hoping that God was listening and willing to help us.

  TD shouted, “Over here! I think I hit something!”

  Just as suddenly as it had started, the blowing leaves stopped. Everything went completely still, and the air around us took on a honey hue, just like when I had walked into the clearing before. I looked at the spot where the opening had appeared in the hedge, and there she was—Isla. “Ashland, get over here! Now!” I pointed at the phantom visitor, screaming at the top of my lungs.

  Ashland looked and then scrambled to his feet, dragging the big man with him. Isla hovered above the ground, and the edges of her dress hem faded into the grass. She wore a blue gown, and her hair fell in perfect ringlets across her shoulders. Her eyes were on me, full of ferocious hate. TD had stopped his digging; even he could see the ghost watching us. “For God’s sake, TD! Keep going!” I shouted. I ran to his side and began helping him pry a small wooden box out of the ground. I forced my shovel blade into the dirt, grunting with the effort, and eased the box up. TD reached down and grabbed it, brushing the dirt off. The lid had elaborate fasteners and a metal nameplate. He rubbed at it and read aloud, “CBC!”

  “Christine Beaumo
nt Cottonwood!” I took the box and held it tightly. I wanted to open it, but I knew I shouldn’t. This wasn’t my task—Ashland had to do it. He had to claim what was his, what had rightfully been Calpurnia’s. That was the only way to break Isla’s claim on the thing she’d wanted so badly. She’d plotted and schemed for the treasure, willing to destroy whomever or whatever got in her way. Even death had not stopped her hate for her cousin.

  Ashland and Devecheaux stumbled toward us, and Isla glided behind them unblinking. I helped Devecheaux sit on the ground; his breathing was fast, and I imagined his heart pounded in his chest as mine did. All of a sudden, she stopped and raised her face so we could see her fully. Her skin was gray, her lips bloodless, her eyes dark, not blue as they had been in life. She extended a hand to Ashland, giving him a dead smile, an invitation to…something. A kiss? To think that face had charmed Captain Garrett into doing the unthinkable. Ashland took a step back, almost walking into the hole before TD stopped him.

  “Ashland,” I said, “you have to open the box, now!” I passed the dirty container to him.

  Isla ignored me, her skin no longer gray but vibrant. I caught my breath at how alive and beautiful she appeared; except for the faded hem and invisible shoes, you would have sworn that she indeed lived and breathed. She gave him a sweet smile and slid closer. “Darling,” she whispered.

  “Ashland! Don’t look at her. Open the box!”

  He tried to work the latch, but his fingers wouldn’t cooperate. “It’s locked!”

  “Bang it with a shovel or something!” TD yelled at us desperately.

  “No, wait. Try this!” I slid the necklace from around my neck. It had fit the lock in the music box, so maybe it would work here too. Ashland took the key and slid it into the rusty lock. At first it refused to open. Isla inched forward again, just a few feet from us now. The soft, yielding look was gone from her face, and her jaw was tight. That soulless buzzing filled my ears again. Ashland jiggled the lock, and the lid opened. He pulled a velvet bag out and let the box fall to the ground. I grabbed his hand, and together we stood holding Christine’s lost treasure.

  “Is that what you want, Isla? You can’t have it! It doesn’t belong to you—it never did! This belongs to me and Calpurnia—not you, never you! Now leave us—leave Seven Sisters! You have no claim here anymore!” he shouted at her.

  Her face contorted into a scream, but no sound came. Her skin faded to gray again, her blue eyes turned black, then gray, and the bright yellow color seeped from her hair. She didn’t flee but simply faded into nothingness, taking all the warmth from the air around us. She was there, and then she wasn’t. The buzzing stopped, and the air was still. The honey hue had changed back to muggy darkness.

  “She’s gone,” I said. “She’s gone.” I smiled with relief, but it faded when I looked at Ashland. He was as white as his shirt. TD was on his knees near the hole he’d dug, and Devecheaux lay on the ground, now truly like a dead man.

  I prayed that he wasn’t.

  Chapter 2

  Ashland and I trailed the ambulance all the way to Springhill Memorial Hospital. Neither of us spoke during the frantic car ride. We were too busy trying to navigate the traffic. The clinking of the flashers was the only sound. Did that really happen? Did we just experience the supernatural? Had we really found a treasure? My dirt-stained dress and my dirty legs and fingers all attested to that.

  Even though Ashland was dirty from head to toe too, his blond hair glowed in the moonlight. His hair was quite like Louis Beaumont’s, but Ashland was tan. He was not the tall, luminous figure that his great-uncle (times eleven?) had been. The Stuart blood ran strong in him too.

  Yes, it had happened. The black velvet pouch lay tossed in the backseat, untouched and unopened. Ashland swung behind the emergency vehicle as it parked. “I’m going to park around here somewhere. Why don’t you walk in with Devecheaux? I’ll meet you inside.”

  “Okay.” I stepped out of the car and watched him drive away. The hospital workers lifted the gurney out of the back of the ambulance. There was the big man wrapped in white sheets, trying to talk but only mumbling.

  “We’re sorry, sir. We can’t hear you. Who’s that? Who are you looking for? Someone named… No, I can’t understand. It’s okay, Mister….”

  “His name is Henri. It’s Henri Devecheaux.”

  “You a family member? Wife? Girlfriend?”

  “No, just a friend. He came to my party tonight. Is he going to be okay?” I attempted to follow him into triage but was blocked by an unsympathetic nurse.

  “Ma’am, you’ll have to wait until the doctor assesses him. Why don’t you follow me, and we’ll fill out his paperwork. Do you know if he has insurance?”

  “No, but since he had his heart attack or stroke or whatever this is on the property of Seven Sisters, I’m sure my boss will want to cover the hospital bills. I can give you that information easily.”

  “That sure is nice of your boss. Who are you working for?”

  “I work for Ashland Stuart, the owner of Seven Sisters. We had a garden party tonight.”

  “Huh. I didn’t know anyone was living there.”

  “Not living there—just a party. It’s kind of a museum now.” Answering all these questions was aggravating, but I had to keep my cool.

  “Let me look at you. Are you injured?” She appraised my outfit with an unbelieving eye. “You sure you two weren’t in a wreck?”

  What was I going to tell her? That we’d done war with a ghost? “I’m fine. And yes, I am very sure. No wreck.”

  She raised her ultra-thin eyebrows but didn’t challenge me. It certainly didn’t help that Ashland walked up completely filthy too. “Yeah, I’m sure y’all had quite the party over there at that big house.”

  She left, disappearing behind the door of the triage room. After about fifteen minutes, it was clear she was in no hurry to come back. I whispered, “Nobody can know what happened in the Moonlight Garden tonight. Who would believe it, Ashland?”

  “They’ll just have to believe it. I know what I saw—it was Isla there. We all saw her. I think she wanted me to kiss her or help her or…I don’t know. It’s weird because I knew what she was trying to do. Isla wanted to trick me into taking her place. Somehow, I knew that. Could you feel that? Like you said, though, when I pulled the bag out of the box, it was all over with.”

  As he spoke, I began to feel the same kind of “wrongness” I had felt in the garden. Not nearly as strong, but there it was. Hoping, looking for a way back in. I knew what we had to do. “Oh my goodness, Ashland. This feels wrong. There’s still a chance something…that she could…. You’ve got to look at it—to see it.” I was almost in tears. “You need to touch it, take possession of it. Let’s go now. Follow me. You do have it with you, right?”

  He nodded, wide-eyed, and followed me to the ladies’ room. I checked the stall—no one was inside. We were alone. I locked the door and stared at us in the mirror. No wonder the nurse thought I was crazy. I was covered in dirt from head to toe. I wanted to wash my face, but more than anything, I wanted to look inside the pouch. What treasure could be so precious that a soul would defy Death to retrieve it?

  Isla had not been clever enough to solve the riddle herself during her lifetime. Poor Callie didn’t even know about it, really. The young heiress hadn’t discovered that the box held a clue, a precious clue that would eventually lead us to the right spot to unearth the hidden prize. Now here we were—dirty and disheveled, hiding in the ladies’ room on the ER floor of Springhill Memorial Hospital. At least the bathroom was clean.

  “Are you ready to look?” I whispered to him hurriedly.

  “Definitely. Let’s see what all this has been about.”

  I heard a soft buzz again, but Ashland didn’t react. I must have been the only one who heard it, but I knew she was lurking about, watching.

  He pulled on the strings of the dry-rotted bag, loosening them with shaking fingers. Without looking inside, he plunge
d his hand into the bag and removed a heavy necklace loaded with sapphires set in gold and silver. Their brilliance had not lessened with time. I held my breath as he passed them to me, thinking of who must have held them last. Had it been Christine Cottonwood or Louis Beaumont? Or perhaps someone else? Carefully, Ashland dumped the remaining contents into his hands. There were ten gold coins, the likes of which I’d never seen, two sapphire earrings encrusted with diamonds, gold and silver, and lastly a bracelet with hundreds of diamonds shining brightly under the fluorescent light.

  The bad feeling began to fade slowly, and then she was gone. She’d seen that we’d found her treasure, or what she had believed was hers. She had seen, and now she was gone. I prayed that I would never see or feel her again.

  Someone knocked on the door, and we quickly stuffed the items back into the bag. Ashland put it in his pocket, and we went to the sink to clean up. We scrubbed up with soap and water, washing our arms and faces. The knocking persisted. “Just a minute, please,” I called to our impatient visitor.

  Once we’d finished our “birdbath,” we walked out together, our heads held high. We’d done nothing wrong. Let her think whatever she wanted.

  “You found the treasure, and the spell is broken, Ashland. She’s gone. Can’t you feel it?”

  He smiled sadly. “Yes, but tomorrow, I will have to answer some questions. People are going to want to know how I found these and where.”

  “So you’ll tell them. No biggie. Just don’t tell them the supernatural stuff. People don’t believe in that, you know.”

  “Yes, I do know.” He still looked sad, obviously remembering that he had been one of those people just the day before.

  “Are you worried about Mr. Devecheaux?” I asked. “I’m sure he will be okay now that he’s here.”

  “I need to check in with TD. He didn’t take any of this well at all. He’d been so adamant about the house not being haunted. Definitely a nonbeliever in the supernatural, and now his world has been rocked. I’m sure he’ll have some questions, and I hope I can answer them.” With a thoughtful look, he added, “I’m thinking of Uncle Louis too, murdered and buried in an unmarked grave. I have to correct that. To think, Isla knew what happened to him but refused to tell anyone. What kind of sick family do I come from?”