“So, what part of haunted and going inside to look around go together?” Danny asked.
“You can wait out here if you want, but I want to take a look inside while we still have some light left.”
Elizabeth held the ornate handle and pushed down the latch, which offered resistance, and she used her other hand for additional pressure, and the door gave way. She wondered why they opted not to fix the lock, but for her sake was grateful that they didn’t. She pushed it open and stood just inside the entryway, taking in the expansive dome shaped ceiling where a large crystal chandelier poised motionless before she turned to the artistically carved staircase that went straight up to a landing that divided left and right. She moved inside and the hardwood surface made a slight squeaking sound as it met with her sneakers, as though offended by the disturbance. Undeterred by the ornery floor, she wandered into a sitting room on the left that was still occupied with furniture hidden under protective coverings. She grabbed one of the sheets and lifted it off a shapeless heap to reveal a delicate floral designed couch complemented with hand carved wood trimming, and a heap of dust scattered through the air, causing a violent high-pitched sneeze reaction in Danny.
“You sneeze like a little dog,” Elizabeth said as she backed away from him.
“No, I don’t.”
“Yeah, you kinda do,” Camille confirmed.
Elizabeth wandered through the stale, lifeless room, peaking under additional coverings and opening an occasional drawer, only to find it vacant. An archway led to an adjoining room, which boasted a large dining table that could easily seat twenty with high back chairs sitting around its circumference silently waiting to be of use. Empty glass cabinets that were built into the wall sat on opposite ends of the room, their contents probably too valuable to be left behind unprotected. As she wandered through the first floor, she found each room fully furnished, but devoid of life. The rooms were spacious and could easily accommodate a small army of occupants, if necessary.
She imagined the house once hosted grand parties, the talk and envy of the Southern socialites, but its glory days past, it sat dejected, forgotten. A celebrity past its prime. If she closed her eyes, she could almost hear a melancholy sigh, and she couldn’t help but reach out and touch the traditional white wainscoting that lined the walls.
“It’s amazing, the front door is unlocked, but this place seems untouched,” Camille said as they had wandered into another oversized room, and she approached a grand fireplace with a lavish mantel. A faded portrait of a man with heavy sideburns was displayed above it. He was dressed in a white high-collared shirt with a silk cravat loosely tied at his neck. An open, well-tailored short jacket exposed a textured beige vest underneath. He bore a stern look with an incessant stare.
Based on the clothes and age of the painting, Elizabeth presumed the friendly looking fellow was the plantation’s founder, Frederick Lawton.
Danny glanced at the portrait and moved away. “Gives me the creeps. He watches us wherever we go.”
Elizabeth assumed the room was a library, as three walls were lined with shelves filled with hardbound books. She freed a book and wiped at the dust before she thumbed through the pages. Despite the dust and slight fading of the covers, they appeared to be in good shape, showing little, if any wear. She guessed that they were more for show than consumption of knowledge. She remembered the old woman’s comments to Jackson and reviewed the titles, but found no fairytales or knights in this library.
“I don’t get it. What are we looking for?” Danny asked, coming up behind her, but Elizabeth only shrugged in response. She really had no idea what connection this place had to her case, if at all. She might have misinterpreted the old woman’s cryptic message and be completely on a goose chase, but what else was she to do. She was at a dead end in the case. A goose chase seemed better than sitting idly by doing nothing.
As they made a complete circle of the ground floor, they found themselves standing once again in the foyer. Elizabeth turned to the red patterned carpet that snaked up the center of the staircase and began her ascent. “Let’s go see what’s upstairs.”
“Nuh-uh, I’m not going up there,” Danny protested.
Elizabeth waved her hand. “Fine, stay down there.”
She could hear slight footsteps behind her and guessed it was Camille. It didn’t take long before Danny was following closely behind them. At the middle landing, Elizabeth turned to the divergent staircases and saw that there was no measurable difference, as at the top a wooden railing lined an open corridor that linked the two sides. She chose left for no particular reason, and neither Danny nor Camille protested as they followed behind.
The hallway of the second floor was awash with light blue walls interrupted by bulky wooden doorframes intermittently spaced along each side. At the end, a large arc-shaped window stood guard at the intersection of another hallway running perpendicular. On full alert with its arching brow, the window allowed the remaining daylight to filter through, reminding Elizabeth that they were on borrowed time, at least as far as their light was concerned.
Elizabeth started with the first door on her left and pushed it open. A waft of musty air struck her. The room smelled of age. Two sets of heavy dark blue curtains were held back by gold ropes, exposing large windows that covered one wall. In the middle of the room, stood a sturdy four-poster bed fully clothed with a fluffy comforter and four large frill covered pillows that were a matching off-white. She assumed that they were once a true white, but time had a say in it. Matching nightstands and a dresser completed the set, and she walked to each and opened the drawers but found them empty. There were outlines on the wall where pictures once hung, but now there were no personal effects, nothing to tell the story of who once occupied the room.
She pulled open a second door that led to a medium-size sitting room with two overstuffed yellow high back chairs that were slanted to face a window, and a small graceful table stood between them with a book resting on top. A sweet floral scent drifted into the space, and Elizabeth turned in a circle trying to find its source.
“Do you smell that?”
“What?” Danny asked from the doorway.
As quickly as the scent came, it dissipated. “Never mind.”
Elizabeth lifted the book on the table and caressed the familiar cover. She opened it and looked inside. “Wow, this is a first edition.”
Danny and Camille came over to inspect her find, but didn’t seem as impressed and moved on. Elizabeth stood there holding the small piece of history in her hand and wondered its worth. To Kill a Mockingbird was mandatory reading in school, but it left an impression. She delicately flipped through the pages and stopped on a page that was marked by a folded piece of paper tucked inside. It was an incomplete letter in neat cursive writing addressed to “My love” and consisted of only a few lines that professed heartfelt emotion. Elizabeth hoped that the author found another way to reach the intended recipient, and that it wasn’t an unrequited love.
Before neatly tucking the paper back inside, she read an underlined passage on the page that advised it was a sin to kill a mockingbird because they did nothing but make music. She traced her fingers over the words before she closed the book and set it back on the table.
Danny’s voice calling for her broke her tranquil moment, and she turned away and moved to a second door that led out of the room. She followed it to an adjoining bathroom where a freestanding claw-foot bathtub sat center stage. Its feet were made of heavy silver, with a majestic pattern that spread up the leg. A delicate porcelain sink stood at its side, with matching silver handles, but the toilet was less dignified. A tacky faded green and white floral patterned shag carpet covered the top seat, embarrassing it, and Elizabeth was tempted to set it free. She could only imagine the bad toupee jokes it endured from its other porcelain roommates. She realized that the house was getting the better of her and moved on through yet another door and found herself in a bedroom. This one seemed more masculine,
but the furnishings were uneventful in comparison.
In the few moments that they stood there, the room visibly darkened as the sun started its descent toward the horizon. Danny pulled the chain on a nearby lamp and stared at it when it didn’t light. “There’s no electricity.”
Elizabeth held back a jibe about the brightest bulb in the box, and instead longed for her car, which contained a trunkful of useful equipment, including flashlights. A sudden illumination caused her to turn, and Danny was holding his cell phone using the flashlight feature. Realizing that she, and probably Camille, left their phones in the car, she was glad that she held back her quip because he was looking brighter than the two of them at that moment.
She located another exit leading to a different room, and they carried on, weaving from one room to another, as each room had more than one entrance and exit. One could almost travel the entire second floor without ever having to use the hallway.
Near the end of their journey, they found themselves in the far corner of the second floor from where they started. The room was darker than the others. It only had two small windows where the last graying light seeped in, and brown wood paneling covered the walls. It featured an overbearing fireplace on one side with two matching deep blue chairs cowering in front, and books lining two additional walls; however, it was the fourth wall that caught her attention, where a large framed Confederate flag hung near the entrance. Danny and Camille lingered in the doorway as Elizabeth approached it.
She had momentarily lost sight of the home’s origin, but the symbol on the wall was a stark reminder. The earlier sympathy she conjured for the antebellum home was fading, and a feeling of antipathy rose within her. She yanked at the corners of the frame until it separated from the wall, and she released, allowing it to fall. The shattering of the glass made a small echo through the closed room.
“Ooops, it slipped,” Elizabeth said as she walked over it.
Camille and Danny offered no comment and finally came into the room as though it was now all clear.
“Shine your light around the room,” Elizabeth said, and Danny obliged, slowly working the light across the bookshelves. She noted that these books were not as neatly packed in as the room downstairs. The books were unevenly lined up with some tilting to the side to accommodate the uneven gaps between them. This, she guessed, was the real library. She scanned the titles, most of which she didn’t recognize, but found a common theme of pro-segregation and pro-Confederacy ideology. Danny picked up a booklet that was lying on the lip of the bottom shelf.
“The Southern Manifesto.” He dusted the cover off on his shirt. Elizabeth gave him a shrug, clearly not as well versed on her Confederate history. “The resolution signed in 1954 by all the US senators and members of the House from the former Confederate states,” Danny said with a bit of smugness that he had something over Elizabeth.
Now it rang a bell. The Southern senators and congressmen signed the manifesto in opposition to the Supreme Court’s ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark civil rights decision that marked the beginning of the end of segregation.
Danny opened the cover and read a passage as she peaked over his shoulder. “We decry the Supreme Court’s encroachments on rights reserved to the states and to the people, contrary to established law and to the Constitution.”
That was enough for her. She returned her attention to the room and completed a circle, learning little more than when she entered, except that this seemed to be the only room that offered one exit.
“I don’t know what else we can find here in the dark. Maybe we should head out,” Camille said with a slight sadness in her tone. Elizabeth knew that she was hoping that they would find something of use, something that told who the old woman was, something that said Jackson Francis was innocent. Instead, they left with nothing more than an extra coat of dust on them.
Reluctantly admitting defeat, Elizabeth nodded and started toward the door, but something caught her eye. “Shine the light over there.” There was a protrusion in the wall on the far side of the fireplace that she had not previously noticed.
As they approached, she realized that it was another door, but this one was different. There was no door handle, and it was flush with the wall, blending with the wood paneling and would have gone unnoticed had it not been ajar.
“This was not open before,” Danny said, trepidation in his voice. Elizabeth didn’t need to see his face to know that he was torn between sticking with the group and running out of the room on his own.
Elizabeth grasped the side of the open door, fully intent on investigating.
“Don’t open it!”
“Danny, relax,” Elizabeth said. “Why don’t you give me the phone and you sit in the chair.”
He allowed himself to sink into the chair cushion and extended his arm, offering up the light. Elizabeth reached for it and snagged her finger on the braided bracelet around his wrist, scraping
her hand on the metal key woven into it. Danny jumped, he was wound so tight, and she knew that she had to make this quick for his sake.
She pulled open the door and entered before Danny could offer a last-minute protest, and she could feel Camille’s warmth behind her as they nearly shared the same space. If she was as freaked as Danny, she was keeping quiet about it. The room was small and offered no windows. A wooden table sat in the middle of the room with six matching wooden chairs neatly tucked in around it, and a small bookshelf rested in the corner with most of the books spilled out into a heap on the floor.
A large map pinned to the wall was the room’s only decoration, and with the meager light, Elizabeth couldn’t see what it depicted. She moved in for a closer inspection to discover a hand-sketched map on yellowing paper that was frayed on the edges. It contained a series of dotted and solid lines that ran vertically and diagonally across the page, with a few arc shaped lines in between, but there didn’t appear to be any order. Interspersed with the lines was a busy collection of squares, circles, and triangles, but there was no recognizable structure or landmass. On the left side of the map were three circles with lines sticking out of their circumferences, resembling crudely drawn suns, much like a child would create. They formed an arc down the side of the page with dotted lines in between, which she presumed to represent a setting sun.
She remembered Samuels’s advice to follow the setting sun and wondered if there was more to his words than a caution of nightfall. She tapped her finger on the top sun and followed its path west to its sunset. As she reached the final sun, she felt an indentation in the wall and pulled back the lower corner where she found a small hole only big enough to fit two fingers. She poked her thumb and index finger inside and pried out a tightly rolled bundle of paper.
“What is it?” Camille asked from over her shoulder, her breath tickling Elizabeth’s ear.
“Not sure.” Elizabeth attempted to use the light to read the document, but it proved too difficult. She tucked the roll into the waistband of her pants for later review. Using Danny’s phone, she took a picture of the map.
Either curiosity got the best of him or he was no longer willing to sit in the dark alone, because Danny stepped a few paces into the confined room. He kept his hands close to his sides, as though he was afraid to touch anything. “I suppose you’re going to want to go through that door now,” he said with defeat in his voice and jutted his chin to the opposite wall.
Elizabeth and Camille turned to the direction he indicated, and she noticed a narrow wooden door on the far side of the room. She walked over and pulled it open. The others were close behind her. They huddled together in the center of the small room, and Elizabeth methodically trailed the light along the walls.
“Holy shit,” Danny breathed out. “There is a fucking arsenal in here.” Elizabeth couldn’t have said it better.
The walls were lined with what Elizabeth could best describe as military style weapons, enough to supply a brigade. There were scopes, muzzles, and other devices she had
no clue what they did, but looked dangerous. A long metal box sat below the weapons and she leaned over to open it. The dust on the cover gave her some assurance that the weapons had been idle for quite some time, possibly forgotten. The box contained a multitude of long, slender cylinders that tapered at one end. “Bullets,” she said and continued sifting through to discover coils of wire and in the corner, a single oval object, which she lifted for better inspection.
“I think you should put that back, very gently,” Camille whispered, her eyes never leaving the grenade in Elizabeth’s hand.
Elizabeth slowly and ever so gently moved back to the metal box. Danny grabbed the cell phone that was still in her other hand and held it out for her as she cautiously set the oval explosive back in its place and closed the lid.
“This is more than enough for your average home defense. What the hell was going on?” Elizabeth asked more to the room than to her friends. She slumped against the far wall to take it all in for a brief moment.
“I don’t know, but you think we can get out of here now?” Danny asked as he turned to the door. She knew that this was more than he had signed up for, and he would think twice before asking if he could come along again.
Elizabeth pushed herself off and started to follow, but a slight clicking sound stopped her. “Wait.”
Danny heard the sound and froze.
“It’s a door,” Elizabeth said, and Danny let out an audible breath and looked to the door that stood slightly ajar next to her.
“I must have opened it when I leaned on it,” she said, and without waiting for a quorum on what they should do, she opened it the rest of the way and stepped inside.
“You have got to be kidding me,” Danny muttered as he stomped toward the new passage. He appeared to resign himself to his fate that they were not leaving until they crawled through every crevice of the godforsaken place and stepped forward with the light, revealing a cramped wooden staircase. He didn’t even bother to ask if the plan was to take the stairs.
Secrets of the Last Castle Page 7
