“What does that mean?”
“Your face was harder, your manner different. You spoke of pregnancy. Were you afraid you would get Sarita pregnant? Didn’t you want children, Walter?”
“Dammit all, Sarita I couldn’t risk losing you!”
“Walter!”
William looked as startled as she felt.
“Why would Walter be afraid for Sarita to have a child?”
“Because she’d had so many miscarriages and her health was worse after each birth. Each baby’s death had bruised her heart more. Why would I, I mean he, risk her life, especially if he might lose her and be left to care for a child alone?” William sounded almost defensive.
“Wouldn’t he want their child, to have a part of her always?” Sarah struggled to keep her tears from flowing.
William’s voice was so quiet she had to lean closer to hear. “Not if the child caused your, I mean her, death. I loved you so much I didn’t want to cause you more pain.”
Sarah moved, leaving William lying on the porch floor.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
He sat up. “Tell you what?”
Sarah moved toward him so quickly she nearly fell. Her hand reared back and she punched his shoulder. “That you knew everything!”
Chapter Fourteen
“What the hell, Sarah? You hit me.”
“You knew what Walter felt.”
“Why are you so upset, Princess?”
“How long?”
“Honey, we need to talk.”
“Now, we need to talk?”
“Doc and I discussed things and I’d planned to sit down with you tomorrow.”
“You said there’s no such thing as reincarnation and I can’t be Sarita, but you called me Sarita and you acted like Walter. You jerk.” Sarah ran down the steps.
“Sarah, come back,” William called. She was in no mood to hear his excuses. How could he let her think she was strange when he knew she wasn’t? Had his memories come in the form of dreams? When had they begun? Dammit, why hadn’t he told her? She had a right to know.
Sarah strode into her kitchen ready to chew nails, pulling her cotton robe tighter around herself.
“Got a bee in your bonnet, sweetheart?” her dad asked. He held a mug to his mouth.
“I don’t want to talk about it.” Sarah grabbed a cup and reached for the pan on the stove. “You made hot chocolate.”
“Just waiting for you.”
“You saw me leave?”
“Umhmm, you weren’t very quiet.” He motioned for her to join him at the table.
“That jerk next door knew something he didn’t tell me. I told him everything, no matter how strange it sounded.”
“You know William hasn’t grown up with reasons to share his problems. He needs time to learn about intimacy.”
“Daddy, I don’t think that’s his problem.”
“I wasn’t talking about sharing bodies. I was talking about risks, emotional risks. He’s had to solve his own problems all his life.”
“You and mama were here for him. He knew that.”
“Yes, but he thought he had to be an adult from the time he was ten. He was born grown up. That’s why you adored him so. We all love him because of who he is.”
Sarah scowled. She had always admired and counted on William because he was so independent. But, dammit, he could have given her answers she needed. He could have told her what he knew.
“Are you gonna tell me what information he failed to share?”
“No, yes. I couldn’t wait until morning to see him so I waited on his porch.”
“Wasn’t he glad to see you in that cute little play suit?”
“Well, yes, but he suddenly acted different, like someone else. Daddy, he even looked different. Harder. And he didn’t seem to know me. Like he was sleep walking.”
“Like you did last night and earlier tonight.”
“He called me Sarita and he answered me when I called him Walter. He was Walter.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“He knew we are Sarita and Walter who lived more than a century ago and he didn’t tell me. He acted like he didn’t believe in reincarnation.”
A knock on her back door set her back up. Her father started to rise, but she stilled him.
“Don’t let him in.”
William’s voice was insistent. “Sarah, come on. I know you’re in there.”
She shouted through the door. “Are you sure you aren’t looking for Sarita?”
“Sarah, please. Let me in.”
Again her daddy started to rise. “No,” she said.
William called again. “Please let me in.”
“Go away,” she called.
She heard a sound like him hitting his head on the door.
“We need to talk, Darlin’.”
She rose and walked to the door. “Go home, William. And don’t call me Darlin.” To her dad she said. “I can’t deal with this tonight. I’m just too angry.” She kissed his cheek. “I’m going to bed.”
##
William lowered his tired body to the top step on Sarah’s porch. His Princess had never refused to see him.
She’d never hit him before. Maybe he’d wait here ‘til morning. How long could she stay angry?
The dream-episode, or whatever it was, had bewildered him. What had triggered it this time? Walter and Sarita had obviously made love in a gazebo. If he had told Sarah about the Walter memories plaguing him, they’d have sat down and discussed what had happened.
There was no denying there was a connection between Sarah and Sarita and Walter and him. Doc had been right about his not waiting any longer to discuss things once he understood what was happening. Tomorrow he’d find out whether he’d get the chance to learn to share and make himself most vulnerable, or if he had waited too long.
He closed his eyes and leaned against the porch support. One moment he was on Sara’s steps, then he wasn’t.
He wasn’t even himself, but a man grieving. He stood beside a new grave. Sarita, so weak and thin, knelt and rubbed her hand across the carved letters on the tiny cross, one more he had carved while his wife prepared the small body for burial.
People around him had lost family members. He had seen men killed in battle. Nothing made it easier to bury his own babies or watch his wife suffer over and over again.
If not for Miller Jackson, Sarita might have died with the baby she had lost. He couldn’t erase the image of seeing her in the wagon, crying and doubled over in pain.
He had tried to call her name but had to struggle against unconsciousness. His body ached and his head felt like it would explode. With careful effort he had forced his body into a fetal position. His limbs barely moved against the pain to let him rise on hands and knees. Sarita’s huddled image wavered in his vision. Her keening scream split the air, pounding in his head. He had to get up and go for help. The baby was not due yet. She could not be in labor.
Walter felt the ground beneath him rumble. Hoof beats? Who would be coming now? Horses were on the way. He tried to call to Sarita again. This time his voice was stronger. “Sarita. Sarita, love. Everything will be all right. I am here.” He pushed as hard as he could, staggering under the weight of his head wound.
God, he could barely see the wagon. A glance told him the horses had run. He prayed the horses he had heard were not his own. They had sounded like they were coming toward him but he didn’t think he could mount a horse or ride for help, even if his own returned. Hell, they were traced together.
He had almost stumbled his way to the wagon when darkness claimed him again. The thunder of horses blended with his wife’s screams. He wept.
“William, William, son.” He knew that voice. Dr. Overby called him from somewhere. He was so tired he wanted to sleep, but there was something important he had to do. A hand on his shoulder shook him. He needed to get help for his wife. He couldn’t be too late this time.
“William, wak
e up. Come inside or go home and sleep.”
Home?
“You can talk to her in the morning.”
“That might be too late.” Fear crushed his heart.
“Too late?”
“To save my wife.”
This time the hand on his shoulder shook him harder. He opened his eyes to a moonlit night. He looked into the eyes of Sarah’s dad, his friend. The older man squatted beside him, looking concerned. When the hand on his shoulder moved to wipe his cheek he realized his face was wet.
“Were you having a Walter moment?”
“A what?”
“Sarah said you are having memories of your life as Walter, Sarita’s husband.”
“Well, that was subtle.”
Dr. O. winced as he eased from a squat to sit on the step beside William. “Sarah’s having episodes of memories as Sarita and she says you were her husband Walter. She also said you knew about her episodes but chose not to tell her about yours. I don’t think being subtle has worked.”
William had recovered enough to be rational. “I know.” He stood and stepped down to the ground. He looked his friend in the eye. “Thanks, dad. See you in the morning.”
Mr. Overby rose back to the higher position. “I expect so. People who love each other work together and help each other. Just stop fighting. Open your heart and your mind.”
William heard the door close behind him as he reached his own yard. He and Sarah would need to sit down and get someone to guide them through the maze of their memories. They would need to control their episodes and use them to learn what was really happening and what they were supposed to do about it.
##
Sarah dressed and left her house early. She didn’t plan to be around when William came looking for her. She’d been up all night reading the books on reincarnation and had loaded them in her car. As soon as the university library opened she strode inside and returned her research stack.
Her next stop was William’s house, only after she had used her mobile phone to call and make sure he wasn’t home. There was no answer. His Mustang was gone, so she slipped through his gate and walked around to the back door. Using the key hidden under a brass monkey-shaped umbrella holder, she entered his house and made her way to his deserted study.
Sarita’s journals sat in a neat stack until she grabbed them and took them to her car. Three were missing. Damn. She went back inside to search his bedroom. She found one on his dresser and two slim black bound ones on his kitchen counter. Any other time she’d have left him a note.
Locking his door as she left, she returned the key to its hiding place.
Driving toward Houster’s horse farm, she told herself she was on her own for now. She couldn’t depend on William as she always had. Taking Baby for a ride would help clear some of the cobwebs from her brain. Her parents might take William’s side as soon as she returned home. She needed a plan. She called home and told her mother she was running errands and puttering around. Her dad had apparently told mom about last night because she sounded worried. ”I’m fine, I just needed to get away and think.” William had called and left three messages, which she chose to ignore. “I’m not speaking to him.”
Her mood lightened as she neared the farm. Soon she and her horse would be together. Baby grazed in the same pasture where Sarah had first seen her.
Sarah leaned on the rail fence and watched as Baby moved toward her. Dust stirred on the gravel drive, announcing company. She turned to see Jason Houster, who looked like a farm boy when he left the truck and sauntered toward her.
“Hi, where’s the Mustang professor? We didn’t recognize your car.”
“I had some free time so I came to see my horse. I should’ve called ahead, huh?”
“Nah, we can have your girl saddled in a jiffy. Come on to the barn and have a cold soft drink while you wait. You might wanna put your boots on and fetch your hat.”
Sarah watched the easy gait of the young man as he returned to his truck. Following him even the short distance to the paddock, she had to eat his dust.
Houster men could saddle a horse quickly, as she’d been assured. Though they couldn’t do anything about her lack of boots, one of the hands had found her a hat.
The Houster horse farm was one of the largest in Georgia, or so everyone around the county said. Sarah believed it. She covered as much of the acreage as possible, letting her frisky mount run across fields and pastures. Even the paths through fields of tall grazing grass and new corn stalks didn’t spoil the effect of being in a wilderness.
Sarah found a rocky steam by a blackberry patch, the perfect place for a late morning rest. Sarah had walked the mare through an overgrown pecan orchard, up a small hill, then down.
Bringing her small backpack had been a wise move. She filled a zippered plastic bag with berries, then washed them with bottled water from her pack, just in case the stream wasn’t as clean as it looked. A protein food bar with the fruit made a refreshing snack.
She sat on a large rock, with her bare feet dangling in the steam as she watched Baby graze the area around the ground stake. In this peaceful place she could imagine that the busy, modern world did not exist. There was no college town, overrun by students less than half an hour away. No highway traffic spoiled the clean air or the quiet. Bird songs serenaded her. The world had been like this when Sarita had lived nearby.
No William had existed to treat her like a child. Actually, Walter had been just as bad as William in some ways. He and William were so much alike, but Walter had been part of a big, loving family, unlike William.
Sarah pulled one of the odd journals from her pack. Tight script on the front page identified the owner as Walter Overby, owner of Mayfield Plantation. She ran her hand over the page, as if his essence could come through after so many years. Entries filled the unlined, yellowed pages. Dates and notations of purchases and events chronicled the years Walter had run the family plantation.
She smiled when she read the list of freedmen who had stayed on to help everyone recover from the destruction of war. Nothing in Walter’s entries suggested the existence of a treasure. Blacks and whites worked alongside each other and shared in the harvests.
Sarita had helped Walter keep the account books but she had never seen his journals. William must have read these. He would’ve believed he was just remembering what he had read. Her beloved skeptic professor would have looked for a logical explanation for his memories, as he had hers.
Walter had recorded marriages, births, and deaths of family members and workers. Sarah’s stomach clinched. She traced the letters of each of her babies’ names in the birth columns, then her finger shook as she tried to follow the careful strokes of each little name and the deaths that had taken pieces of her love to their graves.
Sarita had written about them in the family Bible. Her husband had poured out his heart in the letters he had formed in his private pages. Tears stung her eyes.
Stock purchases, plantings, and breeding notes showed Walter for the meticulous and forward thinking man he was.
Anyone reading these would know Walter’s family and Mattie’s had earned everything they had through hard work. Walter’s notes even mentioned how much Mattie’s Yankee had done for the community.
What if Peter Jackson could see these? Would he tell his family and end their resentment for hers? Did he even know anything about the ancient feud Eloise and Mattie had warned her put her in danger from him? He didn’t act like he knew or believed in it.
Sarah skimmed through the pages to the dates she knew would mention the coffins Walter had made for Sarita’s babies. He had recorded each payment for the doctor and Sarita’s favored midwife-herbalist. William could have known a lot from these but last night hadn’t been about what he’d read here. It had been about what Walter had felt.
Sarah laughed. Her parents had taken her spells or episodes calmly enough. Her father, the doctor, acted like her behavior was normal. Or so it seemed. Maybe her folks were a
t work planning to get treatment for their kookie daughter. I’ll just bet their breakfast conversation this morning was interesting.
Baby ambled over to Sarah and nuzzled her. “Okay, girl. We’ve been still long enough.”
She stuffed the books and food into her pack, then rose. Taking the reins in hand, Sarah led the way through the dense growth to the edge of the orchard, where the midday sun hung overhead. She mounted, then rode toward the paddock and her trip back to deal with her complicated life.
Someone had trained Baby well. Her sleek lines showed careful breeding and her gentleness and spirit spoke of more. Sarah wished she could keep this treasure and ride her often.
Maybe she’d schedule time to drive here every day and spend time with Baby. If she could come without her controlling neighbor today, she could do it again.
By the time Sarah gave her horse over to the Houster hands, she had cleaned and groomed her. She had read about the satisfaction gained from the physical efforts of tending her mount. There was a peace to be gained from the work and good thinking time.
She’d have a talk with Eloise and Mattie and explain her plans to go out with Peter and let him down easily.
She’d avoid William for today.
She’d talk to her parents and assure them she was all right and learn what they were thinking.
She’d avoid William. She wouldn’t even think about him or making love with him.
Haunting Refrain Page 18
