“No, she couldn’t have,” my mind railed. But there was the evidence, right in my hand. I had to wonder . . . could there be any truth in Charles’s comment that I had been chosen by Mrs. Michaud, herself?
An even more outrageous thought filled my mind: Had she innocently done something that provoked the Haitian tribesmen? Had they put a curse on her, too? Did the Myrtles have anything to do with voodoo, or the curse?
I knew that was absolutely absurd. And yet our lives had led us to the same places: a cruise to Haiti, the Myrtles, and San Jose. How could that be mere coincidence? Then again, maybe it wasn’t her; maybe it was the house itself that had orchestrated our lives in identical patterns. Had we both been “chosen,” personally singled out by some force, bigger than us, for our tenures at the Myrtles? Had I been “chosen” as Mrs. Michaud’s replacement?
No way. I was becoming irrational. I must get hold of myself if I was to remain here.
CHAPTER 22
Feeling as if I was going crazy, I decided to go to Baton Rouge after the last tour to get away—if only for a few hours. I called my friend Jimmy Lorio, whom I had met through John L., and asked if I could take him up on his offer to come visit any time. Between the tours that day I busied myself with the restoration of the guest bedrooms, trying desperately not to think about Mrs. Michaud.
With Caesar at my heels, I went into the main part of the house and started up the stairs to paint one of the bathrooms. When I reached the top, I noticed that Caesar was still downstairs, looking up at me.
That was really strange. Caesar always followed me everywhere. I knew it wasn’t the staircase that had given him pause, as he had been upstairs with me at other houses. So what could it possibly be?
“Come here, baby,” I called, but he just sat there and began to howl. I went back down to get him. As I stooped to pick him up to carry him up the stairs, he actually turned and ran away from me, which he had never done before. I found him cowering in the kitchen.
“It’s okay, Caesar,” I comforted him as I picked him up and carried him up the stairs, stroking him softly. The moment I put him down, he scrambled back down the stairs and stood at the bottom, barking. I had never seen him act that way before. I let him stay downstairs, and I went about painting one of the bathrooms. When I finally went back down, there he sat, still guarding the staircase. He was definitely afraid, and I had to wonder what it was that scared him so: Had he heard something upstairs, or smelled something, or seen something? He is not afraid of people. Had he seen an apparition?
“Wanna go for a ride?” I asked Caesar later after the last tourist left. He bounded out the back door and leaped for the car, staying up front with me the entire trip. Jimmy had the cutest bulldog, named Sebastian, and though I worried that the two dogs might not get along, after a once-over sniffing fest, they took a liking to each other. Frolicking in Jimmy’s lush yard, Caesar seemed more animated than he had been in weeks.
Jimmy and I plopped onto the colorful rattan settee in his sunroom, sipping slushy strawberry margaritas he had whipped up for the occasion.
“So, how’s it goin’?” Jimmy asked, his chin propped on his palm.
“Do you mean the restoration, the plans for the inn, or how a California girl copes with life in a small Southern town?”
Jimmy smiled. “I want to hear everything. We have all night.”
I filled him in on everything we had done, and all the plans for the guestrooms and candlelight dinners. I waited until we had finished several strawberry margaritas before bringing up the ghosts. Since Jimmy had spent some time with John L. at the Myrtles, he must know about the ghosts, and I suspected he might have had a few encounters of his own.
“Darlin’, I don’t know what to tell you,” Jimmy offered, when I finally asked him about the ghosts. “There is something there, no doubt about it. John L. had a time with them. Honey, he used to tell us some stories: voices calling out to him, things banging around when no one was there, and a big ruckus going on downstairs, like a wild party going on, you know, voices, laughter, music, and glasses tinklin’.
“He would be sittin’ in the parlor and hear hoofbeats trotting up the drive, or the sounds of a carriage bouncing up the rutted roadway. A few times a lone horseman would ride up, get off his ghost horse, and walk right up to the house and peer into the windows right at them, as if he were lookin’ for someone. He said that there are always two old black men dressed in long black coats sitting out by the garçonnière in front of the main gates.”
That gave me the chills, as I had felt before that there was someone standing sentinel out there.
“One thing we all used to hear was the whistling outside on the ‘whistle walk.’” (The “whistle walk” was the part of the gallery between the kitchen and the dining room. In earlier times, the servants were required to whistle as they carried food into the house, because if they were whistling, they couldn’t be tasting.)
“During our famous hot, sweltering, Louisiana summer nights we used to sleep outside on the lounges on the back verandah. A couple of times we heard these wild, crazy drums beating in some kind of code. It sounded like it was coming from the back of the property. John L. told us it was the ghosts of slaves beating voodoo drums. The slaves used them to communicate with the slaves on nearby plantations. They say that the Voodoo Queen herself lived at Solitude Plantation, directly behind the Myrtles. They did all kinds of secret rituals back up there, sacrifices and all that.”
I shuddered at the mention of voodoo.
Jimmy paused and took a deep breath. “I think the worst sound of all was the growling. I heard it just once, but that was enough for me. It was this guttural wail, unlike any human or animal I have ever heard. Sebastian was with me, and he went nuts. I think it drove John L. crazy.”
“Is that why he’s joining a monastery?” I asked.
“I’m not sure, but I’m sure it entered into his decision. Some of the young boys he used to bring up there were into voodoo and black magic. They used to burn black candles and conjure up the spirits . . .”
“I found a bunch of black candles in a cupboard, but when Lillie May said they were evil, I threw them out,” I told him.
“Good, that’s nothin’ you want to mess with. Let the evil spirits lie. You have enough to deal with without conjurin’ up the devil.”
“What would happen?” I asked, not sure I really wanted to know.
“I don’t know all the details, but I heard John L. got really scared one night and threw them all out. The next thing you know, he had a Catholic priest with a little miniature poodle livin’ up there with him.”
“The ghosts never hurt anyone, did they?” I asked cautiously.
“Well, have you met Arland Dease yet?” Jimmy asked.
Arland Dease and his partner Steve Sanders had purchased the Myrtles and restored it before selling it to John L. Steve had done all the extensive historical research required to put it on the National Register of Historic Homes. They were currently redoing Nottoway Plantation, the largest plantation on the river.
“No, I haven’t had the pleasure yet, but I can’t wait,” I replied. “Why?”
“Well, honey, let me tell you, he had a time with the ghosts, too!” Jimmy continued. “The more they did to restore the house, the more the ghosts acted up. Finally one day they were painting over the faux bois in the entry hall. I guess the ghosts didn’t like that. ‘They’ picked up a huge, impossibly heavy, five-foot-high, thickly gilded gold mirror from under the staircase and threw it twenty feet across the entry hall, hitting Arland in the face and practically knocking him over. Well, Arland really lost it. He ran through the house, screaming, ‘I’ve put all my money into this house. I’m doing everything I can to restore it. You should be happy I’m here. Now leave me alone!’ He still has the scar over his eye.”
“Wow,” was all I could choke out.
“Well, you know he paved over the graveyard to make the parking lot,” Jimmy added. “They s
aid their troubles really escalated after that.”
The implications of what Jimmy had just told me were mind-boggling. An awkward silence filled the room.
“Well, well, where are my manners?” Jimmy recovered. “Here you are my guest, and I’ve been doin’ aaall the talkin’. Here, let me freshen your drink while you talk a while. John L. told me you saw the ghost in the green turban! Tell me all about it.”
I described that experience, and several others, but I specifically avoided any mention of my confrontation with Mrs. Michaud. Even from the safety of Baton Rouge, thoughts of her were far too frightening to allow into my consciousness, let alone to talk about.
Jimmy and I talked well into the night. Finally I headed for the guestroom with Caesar at my side, and Sebastian followed Jimmy into his room. As an afterthought I turned and called out to Jimmy in the next bedroom. “By the way, did Sebastian ever have any unusual reactions when you brought him up to the Myrtles?”
“Well, there was that one time when we heard the growling, and he just went bazookas and started barking like an injured animal,” Jimmy replied, poking his head out his door. “But other than that, no, not really. Except for the fact that he would never go upstairs. Come to think of it, that’s really weird, ’cause he usually follows me everywhere.”
“Yeah, Caesar, too. Well, goodnight again.”
“Goodnight darlin’, sleep well.”
I drifted right to sleep, but I was haunted by my dreams: voodoo drums beating off in the distance as the old voodoo priest held gris-gris over my head, chanting in a strange tongue; an all-too-familiar circle of tribesmen gathering round me, shaking rattles and shouting angry words I couldn’t make out.
Funny . . . I never dreamed when I was at the Myrtles.
In the morning, Jimmy cooked up a marvelous breakfast of eggs benedict, roasted garlic grits, and mimosas and sent me off with a huge hug and kiss. He leaned down and patted Caesar goodbye, too.
“One more thing you must remember,” Jimmy started, taking my hand in his and looking directly into my eyes. I could tell that whatever he was about to tell me was serious.
“Something profound happens to people at the Myrtles. Whatever your issues are, whatever your addictions, the Myrtles seems to take over and bring them out, and make them worse. If you like your liquor, at the Myrtles you will probably become a drunk. If you are depressed, your depression will overcome you. Whatever your problems, they will be intensified. The longer you stay there, the worse it gets. So don’t be surprised if the people around you begin to act crazy. They won’t be able to help themselves.”
I felt every muscle in my body tense up. I tried to act normal as I said my goodbye.
“Thanks Jimmy. Thanks for everything.”
“I hope I didn’t freak you out,” Jimmy offered. “I’m sure you will be fine.”
“That remains to be seen,” I thought.
One last big hug, and I was on my way. As I drove back to St. Francisville I wondered: If what Jimmy said was true about the house homing in on people’s issues and addictions, causing them to act out, how might that affect Jim, or Charles . . . or me?
CHAPTER 23
Another week passed without incidence, and everything for the inn was finally coming together. We were to host our very first overnight guests on June 1. The upstairs had been transformed from a bleak unfinished area that, except for the suite and the peach room, was mostly used for storage, into five exquisite bedrooms, each with its own flavor and personality.
As curator, it was part of Charles’s job to insure that every piece of furniture, every decoration, was from the antebellum period. In the suite, we chose a gorgeous reproduction of Zachary Taylor’s wallpaper, a pale pewter background with a delicate floral pattern. Some of the furniture in that room John L. had pointed out as original to the house, and we added a romantic king-size reproduction four-poster bed with a lace canopy. Our decorator from Baton Rouge had drapes made in pale pewter with pink trim that accentuated the wallpaper. The room was breathtaking.
Once a huge dorm room upstairs where visiting ladies could put down their mats and rest before the ball, the long room in the center of the home was now divided into two guestrooms, the “green room” and the “blue room,” named for their new color schemes. We filled the old nursery on the north wing, the only room that had twin beds, with my grandparents’ Chippendale bedroom suite. The adjoining room, previously semirestored, we called the “peach room.”
Since there had only been two bathrooms added upstairs, we added three more so that each guestroom would have a bath. In order to maintain the integrity of the house, we put all the plumbing on the same side of the house, running down the back. That meant that although all the rooms had private baths, guests staying in the two east rooms (the blue room and the old nursery) would have to go a few feet into the hall to get to their baths. We spent an entire day in Baton Rouge buying designer sheets and towels to color coordinate with each room.
We went all out for our very first guests, leaving fresh-cut flowers and a bottle of chilled champagne in the room. For breakfast, I fried bacon and eggs, while Lillie May made the coffee, rolled the biscuits, and cooked the grits. I still hadn’t gotten the hang of grits; each time I tried to prepare them they grew and grew, so much so that they overflowed the pot and I would have to transfer the mess to a bigger pot.
Running an inn was so exciting! After all, this was my dream; this was the reason I had bought the Myrtles in the first place. It offered a delightful education right from our own living room, as we entertained visitors from all over the world. For the entire first month we told nearly everyone that they were among our very first guests.
We didn’t, however, make any mention of the ghosts to any of the guests. There had already been enough written about the Myrtles’ ghosts over the years, and I didn’t want to scare off any potential business. Occasionally, however, a guest reported an occurrence and asked us about it, at which times we tried to downplay it as much as possible.
The business became so popular so fast that after one particularly busy weekend not long after we opened, Charles and I were actually glad to have the house to ourselves again. Fortunately, a couple of weeks had gone by with no supernatural disturbances, so I felt relatively safe when I got up early, full of energy and excitement, and decided to go upstairs to inspect the empty guestrooms, to determine if they needed any further touches. After all, it would be getting light soon.
I was in the suite, arranging the knickknacks and daydreaming about our inn, when nature called. Rather than go all the way downstairs, I used the bathroom in the suite. As I sat on the toilet, I heard a man’s voice calling me. I had assumed that I was the only one up, so I had carelessly left the door open. Jumping up, I quickly slammed it shut.
“What did you say?” I asked.
“Have you finished the upstairs yet?” a strange voice called.
I opened the bathroom door just a crack and peered out, but did not see anyone. I quickly finished what I was doing and cautiously crept back into the suite. My eyes darted around the room, still thinking that maybe Charles had followed me up, but he wasn’t there.
Faster than I have ever moved before, I darted out of the suite and down the stairs, nearly tripping and hurting myself to get out of there. I ran right into the sitting room without even knocking, but Charles was sound asleep. Still, there was safety in being close to him. I made sure all the doors to the outside were still securely locked before I quietly returned to the comfort of my bed.
“Yeah, right, as if locking the doors would keep them out,” I realized.
CHAPTER 24
It was another long month before our last property in San Jose sold, and Jim was finally able to join me at the Myrtles. I had been there without him for more than three months, and I was so happy finally to be with him! For the first few days, we remained blissfully unavailable in the bridal suite. It was only when the weekend arrived and we had to vacate the suite
for paying guests that we moved downstairs to my lumpy bed. Charles bravely moved upstairs to the old nursery. Because of the twin beds, it was the least-requested room, so it was the room he was least likely to have to vacate for an overnight guest.
As a couple once again, Jim and I started socializing with people in St. Francisville.
We joined the choir at Grace Episcopal Church in St. Francisville. The church has an interesting history. Founded in 1827, the Gothic-style brick church had withstood a battering of shell attacks from Yankee gunboats on the river during the Civil War. St. Francisville sat between Port Hudson and Vicksburg, the only two remaining Confederate strongholds on the river. If the Union forces could gain control of these two ports, they would control the river, completely cutting off supplies to the South. As St. Francisville was being fired upon from the Union ship Albatross, the ship’s captain, Lieutenant Commander John E. Hart of New York, lay in his bunk dying of yellow fever. His last request was that he receive a Masonic burial. Upon his death, the War halted in St. Francisville as his body was carried into the very town his ship had been shelling. He was taken to Grace Episcopal Church, where he received a full Mason’s funeral, attended by Masons of both sides, and was carried to the Masonic plot on the church grounds where he was buried. Immediately after the services, the grieving Yankees returned to their ship to resume attacks on their Mason cohorts.
Father Savoy, the senior priest at Grace, was quite a character. He seemed to enjoy his visits to the Myrtles, and we always had his favorite alcoholic beverage waiting for him. Every morning Father Savoy could be found hanging around the post office, one of the best places in town to catch the daily gossip, and he was always one of the first to report on the latest town “news.”
And what gossip there was in this deceptively sleepy town: It was rumored that one of the hoity-toity social clubs was notorious for its “key parties,” where everyone’s house keys were thrown in a box, and the husbands, drawing keys at random, went home to the house, and wife, that fit the key; that a young Episcopal priest was having a torrid affair with a local housewife; that the physician’s wife left him for the biological mother of their adopted child; and that when the circus came to town, the coroner’s wife ran off with the strong man! I’m sure these scandals go on in California, but you don’t hear about them; in a small town, you know everything about everyone!
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