Witch Angel

by Trana Mae Simmons

  “I saw a dog running free earlier,” Sylvia said. “Wonder where it’s at?”

  “Over there on the back porch of the house,” Francesca said with a nod. “See? Right next to the dogtrot, which goes out to the kitchen.”

  “Kitchen? Frannie, isn’t the kitchen in the house?”

  “No. In these times it’s so hot down South that people build their kitchens separate from the house,” Francesca explained. “Food’s prepared out there and carried inside at mealtime. Look through the roof at the interior. See? One whole wall of that building is a fireplace.”

  “I’ve never been on earth in this time period, remember? All I know is what I learned from the human spirits I talked to. Guess I’m used to the places I saw during the time I spent with Jacki—the ones with air-conditioning. Well, anyway, that dog doesn’t look like it’s paying any attention to anything except its afternoon nap. It’s some sort of mixed breed, not a hound, like in the kennels.”

  “Cute, though,” Francesca said. “Black and white fur, longer than it should be to be comfortable in this heat, though.”

  “The only other animals left that I’ve seen are the mules working the fields,” Sylvia said, dismissing the dog from her thoughts. She never had cared much for those slobbering animals—cats were more her style. “I guess we’re back to prowling around the other plantation buildings again.”

  Sighing in disappointment over her idea not panning out, Sylvia flew over the garden laid out behind the plantation kitchen, into a small white building with a pointed spire on top. Inside, she immediately paused and gazed reverently around her.

  “Isn’t this a darling little chapel?” she whispered when Francesca appeared beside her.

  “Yes, and it’s kept up beautifully,” Francesca murmured in reply. “Basil had it built, you know. The workers constructed it at the same time as the plantation house.”

  “Frannie, do you know the whole history of this Basil’s family?”

  “No,” Francesca admitted. “Just the parts I was allowed to see when I got a quick rundown from the Archangel who gave us the assignment of talking Basil into leaving this plane of existence. Of course, we’re to keep an eye on Alaynia, also.”

  “Alaynia wouldn’t be in such a dangerous situation, if this Basil guy hadn’t misused his powers and tricked her into driving through that time warp! Why don’t we just lead Alaynia back through it?”

  “Because we don’t know what Alaynia’s destiny is,” Francesca said in exasperation. “That will be her choice now, and we have to keep ourselves completely out of that. And I wish you’d not always preface his name with ‘this’ or ‘that guy.’ Sylvia, Basil was a kind and loving husband at one time, and you already know that Shain thought the world of his grandfather.”

  “What sort of master was he?” Sylvia muttered.

  “Master?”

  Sylvia slanted a look at Francesca. “This Basil guy built that plantation house and everything else here, including this chapel, with slave labor, didn’t he? How do you expect me to feel about him, Frannie? Men like him worked slaves to death, so they could live in all this finery!”

  “Oh, dear. You’re not supposed to judge, dear. Is that why you didn’t want to go with me earlier, when I checked out the cabins where Shain’s workers live?”

  “I figured that would be wasted time,” Sylvia snapped. “The plantation master wouldn’t be hanging around his former slave cabins.”

  Francesca took a firm hold on Sylvia’s arm. “Then it’s time you did go look at those cabins, Sylvia. Right now.”

  She pulled a resisting Sylvia back through the chapel door and up into the air. They bypassed the smokehouse and blacksmith forge, only cursorily examining both for a sign of Basil. An instant later, Sylvia saw the cabins previously used to house the slaves on the plantation, laid out along two intersecting dirt roads. Huge trees lined the roadways, and each cabin had its own semi-private square lot. Every one was freshly whitewashed, and most had a small, well-tended garden behind the cabin.

  The front yards were not bare dirt, as Sylvia admitted to herself that she’d anticipated from some of the stories she’d heard from human spirits of living conditions in the Old South. Neatly-clipped grass covered the spaces, except in some of the shadier spots, where pink-flowered moss grew. Flowers bloomed everywhere, along the paths from the road to the porches and lining the house fronts.

  On one porch she saw two elderly black men sitting in rocking chairs, drinking from tall glasses and murmuring to each other. Behind several of the cabins, elderly women hoed weeds or picked produce from the gardens. Her eyes widened when she realized the women were black and also white.

  Noting Sylvia’s amazement, Francesca explained, “Chenaie’s run on the sharecropping system, and both black and white families hire on with Shain. Each family of workers gets their own cabin on an acre of land to live in, and a share of the cotton or other crops for their own at harvest time. The gardens are theirs, too, and they can preserve what they raise for their own use or sell any extra in St. Francisville.”

  “Sounds like communism,” Sylvia muttered.

  “Oh, for pity sakes,” Francesca said, close to losing her patience. “It’s not the same at all. About half of these cabins and plots of land are actually owned by the workers—the families can buy them from Shain if they like. And see those two men on the porch?”

  “Yes.”

  “They came to Chenaie under Basil.”

  “You mean he bought them and brought them here.”

  “Sylvia, I didn’t realize you felt like this. Why, you actually sound prejudiced.”

  “I didn’t know how deeply I felt myself,” Sylvia admitted with a sigh, “until we came here. I admired Dr. King and his message of peaceful revolution, but look what that got him. I know we aren’t supposed to judge people. And we’re definitely not supposed to judge the overall plan, because it’s not something we’re allowed to know.”

  “Even as angels, we grow and learn,” Francesca reminded her. “Our place in the scheme of things is being especially close to humans. Our experiences with them expand our own knowledge.”

  “Maybe I should go on back, and you can find someone else to work with you on this assignment,” Sylvia said with a sigh. “I’m not sure I’m up to handling this one.”

  Francesca picked up Sylvia’s hands in her own and squeezed them gently. “Give it a little more time. Please? Let me show you something else.”

  “Okay,” Sylvia agreed begrudgingly. “As long as you try to understand, even if I’m not sure myself why I’m having these feelings. Maybe it’s part of my own spiritual growth. None of us gives a second thought to the color of a human’s skin. But ever since we got here, I haven’t been able to forget what I saw when I started paying closer attention to that horrible slavery issue down here on earth.”

  “Chenaie’s a little pocket of hope for those coming days, Sylvia. Let me show you.”

  More in comfort than concern that Sylvia wouldn’t follow, Francesca kept one of the other angel’s hands in her own as she led the way over the tree tops. In another clearing, they hovered above a sprawling, cheerful yellow building, which also had a spire on top. But in a yard scattered with swings and slides, teeter-totters, and even a maypole hung with hand swings, over two dozen black and white children shrieked and played.

  A black man and two white women presided over the gathering, strolling among the children. They stopped now and then to offer a word of encouragement in a game of Red Rover Come Over, or intervene in a tiff over whose turn it was to push—whose to swing. One small black child took a tumble from a teeter-totter, and a woman lifted her skirts and hurried over to pick the child up.

  “That’s the school down there,” Francesca said after a while. “And the adults you see are all teachers. School’s over for today, but they keep the children busy for a while after their lessons. Most of the men workers on Chenaie, and even some of their wives, work in the fields, but the wom
en quit earlier than the men. In a few minutes, the teachers will deliver the children home to their mothers.”

  Confirming Francesca’s words, the man walked over and clanged a bell to call the children to attention. The small girls and boys slowly and reluctantly left their games and formed two lines. The two oldest boys reentered the building with the man, while the women led the rest of the children toward the cabins.

  “The man and the boys will clean up and rearrange the seats for church on Sunday,” Francesca explained. “He’s also the minister.”

  “Aw, come on, Frannie. With only those few children on the plantation, maybe I can see them going to school together. But you’re not gonna make me believe that those white families go to church under a black minister in these days!”

  “No, things haven’t gone that far yet in this time, even on Chenaie,” Francesca admitted, trying to ignore Sylvia’s knowing smirk. “The other families go into St. Francisville on Sunday, as Shain and his sister do. But the point I was trying to make is that all the children on Chenaie have an opportunity for an education. What they make of it is up to their families. There will be some black leaders come out of those children below, or at least their children or grandchildren.”

  “I’d say that’s the least they deserve,” Sylvia said as she slowly waved her wings and started away from the schoolhouse. “After the way their parents were brought here in chains!”

  “Nobody asked your opinion, girlie,” a voice snarled. “I built Chenaie and my blood runs Chenaie!”

  Sylvia whirled to face Basil boldly. “I told you to quit calling me those sexist names!”

  “Since you didn’t bother to introduce yourself earlier, like a proper lady would have, what the devil do you expect me to call you?” Basil asked with a snort.

  “Y—you sure weren’t a gentleman,” Sylvia sputtered, her indignation and courage dissipating in the face of Basil’s hauteur. Good grief, what was there about this ghost that frightened her? After all, he was only a man—or used to be, anyway.

  “Will you two please behave yourselves?” Francesca said as she floated around Sylvia’s shoulder.

  To Sylvia’s amazement, Basil grinned at Francesca and took her outstretched hand. Carrying her fingers to his mouth, he kissed them and said, “Hello again, Miss Francesca. You’re looking lovely. Please accept my apology for the little fracas earlier, but you caught me at a bad moment.”

  “Obviously,” Francesca replied. “Allow me to properly introduce my friend, Sylvia. She’s already aware that you’re Shain’s grandfather.”

  “Sylvia,” Basil said with a nod.

  Sylvia’s eyes narrowed at what she considered Basil’s deliberate slight at addressing her without using a preliminary Miss, as he had with Francesca. “Basil,” she ground out in return. “Or should I call you Massa Basil?”

  Francesca groaned under her breath, but Basil only shrugged. “My Negroes called me Master while I ran Chenaie. Feel free to use whichever you wish.”

  “Listen here, buster ...”

  “Buster is not acceptable,” Basil interrupted. “Insolence I do not tolerate.”

  “Sylvia ...” Francesca began, but Sylvia overrode her.

  “Were I a human black, I suppose I could get sentenced to a whipping for insolence. Is that what you mean?”

  “I never whipped my female Negroes,” Basil denied. “And rarely did I have to order a male punished. However, stealing was an offense punishable by the whip.”

  Francesca firmly stepped between the two of them and directed her words to the ghost. “Basil, we need to talk. You’ve committed a great breach of your powers by bringing Alaynia to this time period. It could be dangerous for her here. You need to come with us now.”

  “I’ve made up my mind to stay right here at Chenaie, and you’re not going to change it, Francesca. So you might as well go on home.”

  “Can’t we at least discuss why you thought it necessary to bring Alaynia here, Basil, and why you’ve made the choice you have?” Francesca asked. “Tell us where we can find you later, after you’ve thought about this for a while, and we’ll talk some more.”

  “It’s been delightful,” Basil said in a polite tone, “but I really must take my leave now.” He gave a brief bow and disappeared.

  “Basil!” Francesca called, but received no response. Shaking her head, she sighed deeply and turned to Sylvia. “How in the world are we supposed to reason with him, if he won’t stay around long enough to talk?”

  “Huh,” Sylvia said. “Even the few minutes he does stay are more than enough for me. He acts like he’s some sort of king or something. Look at all this, Frannie.” Dashiki skirt tangling and braids bouncing, Sylvia waved her hands and spun around. “He’s got his own little city here—his own little kingdom filled with people to do his bidding! When he was alive, all he ever had to do was snap his fingers and open his mouth. He could order everything from a mint julep on a silver tray to his horse saddled and delivered to the front steps, so he didn’t have to get his boots dusty walking to the barn!”

  “Someone had to be in charge, to get all this built and keep it running smoothly, Sylvia.”

  “Yeah, so Massa Basil could be comfortable! Frannie, he’s used to ordering people around—playing with their lives at his own whim. What makes you think he’ll obey us, when we’ve chosen to use female corporeal bodies because those fit our own personal traits as the angels we are? He’ll just think of us as two women, who were sent here to tell him to change what he’s decided he wants done. Granted, we’re from a different plane, but he sure doesn’t appear to care about that. Maybe we should go back and tell them to send someone who prefers a male corporeal body—a big, strong, ornery male body—one ornerier than he is.”

  Francesca gasped in horror. “Oh, we can’t, Sylvia! I’ve never failed in an assignment yet, and I’ll be diddly darned if I’ll go back and admit that I think someone else might be able to handle this assignment better than I can!”

  “It appears to me that this man’s getting the best of us,” Sylvia grumbled. “And I don’t like it one bit!”

  “Harrumph,” Francesca responded with a sniff of disdain. “I agree with at least one point you’ve tried to make before, and that’s that women—human or angel—are just as capable as men and can handle anything men can. There’s not a thing inferior about our brains.”

  Sylvia laid an index finger beside her mouth and half-closed her eyes in contemplation. “Then maybe we should put our superior brains together and see what we can do to outsmart that old rascal, girlfriend. Didn’t he say something the first time we met about bringing Alaynia back here so she wouldn’t disturb the peace on Chenaie in the future?”

  “Yes, he did. Alaynia had it in mind to restore Chenaie and turn it into a bed and breakfast. I suppose Basil didn’t want a lot of strangers trooping in and out of his plantation. And besides, Alaynia isn’t descended from the St. Clairs. Her relationship to her Great-Aunt Tilda was through the remarriage of one of Tilda’s nephews.”

  Sylvia flew over to a nearby cloud and sat down, crossing her legs and patting the space beside her. “Sit, Frannie. Thinking’s hard work, and we might as well get comfortable.”

  As soon as Francesca joined her, Sylvia propped her elbows on her knees and cupped her chin. “Okay. Now, tell me what you do know about this assignment. How did Alaynia end up with Chenaie? She’s an orphan, and if she was Tilda’s only living heir—even by marriage—why didn’t Tilda contact her earlier, while she was still alive?”

  “Tilda was rather ... ummm, eccentric,” Francesca replied. “She didn’t even bother to worry about who would take over Chenaie, until she was faced with having to go into the nursing home when she could no longer care for herself.”

  “So then she ... what? Hired a detective to find out if she had any relatives left?”

  “Exactly. And when the detective found Alaynia, Tilda, still being independent enough not to want Alaynia to feel obligated to visit
her at this late date, just had the detective make periodic reports to her. Knowing that her great-niece had made a career of restoring old houses, Tilda was satisfied that Alaynia would care for Chenaie well.”

  “That was a double whammy for old Basil, though, huh? A woman, and not even his blood, taking over Chenaie—letting strangers have the run of it. I guess he’d rather see it empty and run down, so he could haunt in peace.”

  “He’s not really haunting, Sylvia. Basil’s stubborn, and he’s kept his traits in this state of being. Like a lot of human men, he resents change. He would be perfectly happy living with us, if he’d just give it a chance. But he prefers to have his afterlife here—at Chenaie.”

  “Don’t you think there might be a little more to it than that, Frannie? There’s gotta be something else holding him here.”

  “If we can find out what that is,” Francesca mused, “maybe we can reason with him a little better.”

  “Frannie, reasoning with a man’s not the way to go. We’ve gotta dig into our bag of feminine wiles and make him think whatever we want him to do has been his idea all along!”

  Chapter 8

  Alaynia scooted onto the padded window seat in the room Jeannie had led her to earlier that afternoon and curled her arms around her knees. A night breeze feathered through the open window, and she laid her head back against the side of the deep window frame.

  The Camellia Room, as Shain had called it, was at the back of the house, and she could gaze out over Chenaie’s rose garden. A half-moon hung low, barely visible in the upper branches of a magnificent live oak on the far edge of the garden. Beyond the oak, she could see the graveyard, with smaller headstones neatly aligned on each side of one towering tombstone.

  Graveyards had always fascinated her. She loved walking through the peaceful grounds, making up pretend stories about the various families in different plots. Whenever possible, she researched the history of the house she had been commissioned to restore—got to know the past family members as well as possible. At times, she would be lucky enough to even visit the graves of the people who had made the house come alive in the actual time period she aspired to attain in her restoration. Not really considering herself psychic, she still felt a stir of sensitivity whenever she studied the tombstones where the birth and death dates coincided with her restoration period.