Witch Angel

by Trana Mae Simmons

  The shaft of sunlight brightened, outlining the towering tombstone in radiance. A strange fear stole over Alaynia, but she couldn’t seem to tear her gaze away. Her muscles wouldn’t respond to her mind’s command for her body to move from the window seat, and the unexplainable fright heightened when her body wouldn’t react. The only things not paralyzed were her hammering heart and her thoughts, which raced frenziedly, wondering if she could be having a heart attack or stroke.

  Suddenly the brilliance around the tombstone disappeared, leaving behind only a peaceful mistiness in the graveyard. Alaynia wrenched her hands from the windowsill and stumbled backwards. Staring down at her arms, she saw them covered with goose bumps, despite the warmth in the room. The feeling spread over her body, almost as though she had walked through a nest of spider webs.

  A hallway door slammed, and Alaynia shook the shock away, quickly telling herself it was only her frazzled nerves that had caused the experience. She glanced down at her arms, where the skin was now smooth and unmarred. Her heart still raced, but she took a few calming breaths and walked toward the armoire—away from the window. Her body responded perfectly.

  She had to hurry and dress before Jeannie came looking for her again. It wouldn’t do for the young girl to find her in mid-dress, without the cumbersome, old-fashioned underclothing beneath her gown. Hopefully, Jeannie’s training in manners included not entering another’s room without knocking first, as she had done a few minutes ago. Right now, though, the young girl’s chattering presence would have been welcome in the eerily silent room.

  A faint hint of floral perfume reached her when she opened the armoire door and, as she removed her riding habit, she made a mental note to ask Jeannie what sort of sachet they used in the freestanding closet. The Southern flowers were all new to her, but she would enjoy drying them and making her own blends.

  If she ever had her own closets and drawers to place them in again. Drawing in another breath for courage, she began dressing for her tour of the plantation manor house, which she could no longer call her own.

  * * * *

  Basil sat on the tombstone, frowning at the window on Laureen’s old room. His wife had only used it to store her clothing, since she had slept in his bed during their lives. The pull he had felt when he saw Alaynia leaning out the window had surprised him. He’d become used to his loneliness, which began after Laureen’s death and continued for the nineteen years he remained among the living. It was even his constant companion in his present state.

  No matter how much he practiced his powers, he hadn’t been able to penetrate the time barrier to the past, where he could again live with Laureen. For some reason, that area of time remained closed to him. He could only protect her gravesite, even though he felt the same emptiness there.

  Come to think of it, Alaynia might be of some use, since he’d brought her back here to safeguard what he considered the future of Chenaie. None of his relatives had bothered keeping up the family history Basil had meticulously penned in his life, and he’d always meant to expand on it more than just birth and death dates. However, after Laureen’s death, he hadn’t been able to bring himself to make the effort.

  The chit seemed interested in history—old families and old records. Might as well give her a suitable task for a female with which to occupy her time. Keeping a wary eye out for those two annoying angels, who seemed determined to interfere with his plans, he flew from the tombstone and into the window of the Camellia Room, then zipped on into his old bedroom.

  * * * *

  Shain eyed Alaynia’s blue riding habit with distaste again, as the groom led two horses from the barn. She had realized the moment she entered the dining room, where Shain waited for them an hour ago, that the habit wasn’t proper attire for breakfast, though Jeannie hadn’t mentioned it while they had their coffee and chocolate. However, she’d seen no reason to change clothing twice, when she knew she’d be riding soon after the morning meal.

  But Shain’s words denigrated more than the riding habit being improper breakfast attire—he obviously didn’t care for its fit on her, either.

  “That damned skirt’s split like pants,” he muttered as the groom came closer. “Before you wear it again, have Tessa fashion it into a proper skirt, and make it long enough to cover your boots.”

  Alaynia immediately bristled. “I ordered this habit made to be comfortable. Skirts weren’t meant to be worn on horseback.”

  “All you’ve gotta do is drape them along the side of your saddle,” Shain growled. “The horses women ride are trained to ignore the flutter.”

  The groom handed the reins of the two horses to Shain and walked back toward the barn. Alaynia’s anger diffused as she studied the charming little chestnut mare. The mare nudged her with a white-striped nose, and Alaynia cooed softly to the animal and stroked its muzzle. “Is this one for me to ride?”

  “I take it she suits you then?” Shain asked in a softer voice.

  “Oh, yes. She’s gorgeous. Most of the riding I’ve done has been on farm horses, or a horse from a rental stable.”

  “I’m sure you can handle Ginger. She’s a lady’s mount. Let me help you up.”

  Alaynia moved around to the side of the horse and halted abruptly. “What the heck’s that?” she asked, pointing to the sidesaddle with the wickedly high pommel on the front.

  “What? The saddle? I thought you were used to riding. Surely you didn’t ride bareback.”

  “I sure as heck didn’t ride on a contraption like that.” Alaynia tossed the ponytail she had swept her hair up into that morning back over her shoulder. “I told you, I ride astride. That’s another reason my skirt is made in what’s known as culottes. I saw one of those sidesaddles in a museum once—down under the arch in St. Louis. I thought then that it looked about as comfortable as riding on a Brahma bull’s back with my leg around the hump.”

  She pointed at the saddle Shain had on his black horse. “The stables where I rode in Boston used English saddles on the horses, like that one. I’ll wait until you change that other monstrosity out for one like it.”

  “Southern ladies—”

  “Wait up!” Jeannie called as she raced toward the barn, now wearing her own riding habit. She had the skirt hiked up almost to her knees, and Shain glared at her when she forgot to drop the material from her hands as she stopped beside them.

  Discerning the meaning of the scowl on Shain’s face, Jeannie quickly let the skirt fall into place. “I figured you were going riding,” she said in a voice breathless from her run. “Weren’t you going to invite me along? You knew I didn’t have any other plans for today, Shain. And it’s been so boring around here lately. Where are we going?”

  “We aren’t—”

  “Of course we’d love to have you ride with us,” Alaynia interrupted. “In fact, you can ride Ginger. Shain was just going to have a different horse saddled for me.” She shot him another one of those combative looks he seemed to bring out in her. “You see, I’m really more used to riding on an English saddle—like the one on Shain’s horse. We were just talking about how much more comfortable I’d be on one of those.”

  Jeannie giggled impishly. “One of our neighbors, Miz Thibideau, rode her hunter over this spring using a man’s saddle. She even went on the boar hunt with the men. Ever since then, I’ve been asking Shain to let me learn to ride astride. Why, my friend Bessie and I discussed how much more comfortable it looked, and Bessie told me the other day that she’d snuck out and tried it while her parents were off visiting, and it was more comfortable. She said her groom almost had heart failure, though, and—”

  “Jeannie, you’re prattling again,” Shain interrupted in a resigned voice. “Don’t you have lessons you need to get ready for, when your tutor comes tomorrow?”

  “I’ve finished my lessons, Shain. You asked me that yesterday evening, remember? Now, can I go riding with you? Please?”

  “I suppose,” he replied hesitantly, evidently unable to muster the f
ortitude to disperse the excitement in his little sister’s face. “But we’re riding over to Jake’s, and I’ve got some private business to discuss with him. You’re not to go poking around all over the place like you usually do, being a distraction.”

  “I won’t. I promise,” Jeannie said solemnly. But as Shain strode away to order another horse saddled, Jennie’s blue eyes sparkled at Alaynia. “It’s always so much fun over at Jake’s. You should see all the things he’s always coming up with—his inventions. Oh, but I guess you know about them, since he’s your uncle.”

  Aware of one invention that Jeannie had to be kept from seeing at Jake’s—her car—Alaynia shrugged in feigned disinterest. “I really don’t know that much about Uncle Jake’s life. I didn’t even realize he wouldn’t have a place for me to stay when I decided to visit, remember?”

  “That’s right,” Jeannie agreed. “Golly, I can’t imagine traveling all that way to see someone, without knowing for sure what sort of place I’d have to stay when I got there. I’ve only been away from Chenaie for a week once, at my other friend Sissy’s house after her family moved to Baton Rouge. And Shain took me there himself and came back for me.”

  “Well, I’m a little older than you,” Alaynia said wryly. “And I don’t have to ask anyone for permission to go where I want.”

  Thankfully, Shain came back with another horse before Jeannie could voice the further questions Alaynia saw growing in the young girl’s eyes. The bay mare he led was also a fine horse, with a coat that gleamed in the sunlight, and an English saddle set on its back. Alaynia smiled sweetly into Shain’s set face when he offered his cupped hands to help her mount.

  A moment later, the three of them rode around the plantation house and headed down the front drive. Alaynia studied the fields with more interest this time as they passed. On one side of the road were mostly women and older children, dragging tote sacks while they picked the fluffy cotton balls from the dry-looking plants. Beyond them, teams of mules pulled plows, already turning the soil again.

  “We plant two cotton crops a year,” Shain explained when he noticed her interest. “Usually, we have a long enough growing season to harvest both crops.”

  “And that’s your sugar cane back there beyond your cotton, on this other side of the road?”

  “Yeah, not that it’s doing real well yet. But I’m still studying the best way to raise it here.”

  “There’s one thing I don’t understand,” Alaynia mused. “Most all of the plantation houses I read about—well, I sort of got the impression that the fields were always in the back of the house. Yours are on the land leading up to Chenaie.”

  “The land I own behind Chenaie is forest land,” Shain said. “You find that a lot in this end of the state. And forest land’s not rich enough to grow our crops, even if you clear it.”

  “Have you ever thought about selling some of the timber from your other land?” Alaynia stiffened in her saddle at the thunderous look that came over Shain’s face. “I ... well, I’m sorry. But with all the rebuilding in the South, I’d think lumber—”

  “No one’s stripping Chenaie land, like they’ve begun doing to the cypress forests south of us,” he snarled. “Don’t ever bring that up to me again!”

  Alaynia clamped her mouth shut. Sparring with him over his ordering her around was one thing, but she’d never seen this deadly glint in Shain’s eyes at those other times. Though the sun was already beating down, she stifled a shiver and kept her silence as they rode on toward Jake’s.

  She paid more attention to the forks in the road they took today, and a scant half-hour later, they rode into a clearing. She recognized the elderly black man who sat in a rocking chair on the porch of a ramshackle cabin as the man who had been driving the wagon yesterday. As soon as he saw them, he rose and hurried toward a huge barn beside the house.

  Shain led the way to the hitching rail in front of the cabin and dismounted. He assisted Jeannie from the saddle, then glared at Alaynia, who had swung down on her own.

  “I told Jeannie earlier that I didn’t have any servants back in Boston,” Alaynia said with a shrug in response to his scowl. “I’m used to getting off my horse by myself.”

  “Down here,” Shain growled in a low voice as Jeannie moved away from them, “a lady waits for a gentleman to help her dismount.”

  “And does a gentleman sleep in a lady’s bed uninvited?” Alaynia asked in an innocent voice.

  Shain’s eyes softened from walnut to a lighter hue, and his lips formed a half-smile. “Does that mean I might be invited sometime?”

  Unable to resist his teasing, which she enjoyed a whole lot more than when they gritted threats at each other, Alaynia cocked an eyebrow and flicked a loose thread from his shirt sleeve. “I’m not supposed to tell you what the future holds, remember?”

  “Witch,” Shain breathed.

  “No, no, Miz Jeannie!”

  Alaynia and Shain turned toward the sound of Zeke’s voice to see him leading Jeannie back toward where they stood. “Mister Jake, he’s busy, Miz Jeannie,” Zeke explained as they walked. “You know how he gets when he’s a workin’ on somthin’ real important. Wouldn’t do to bother him right now.”

  “Then I guess we’ll have to go on home,” Jeannie said. “Shain wanted to talk to Jake, but if he’s busy ...”

  “Mister Jake probably won’t mind if Massa Shain wants to talk to him,” Zeke replied. He suddenly glanced at Alaynia and shuffled back a few steps, a mixture of apprehension and awe on his face. “Uh ... say, Miz Jeannie,” he quickly said, “that there old cow done went and had her calf. You come on with me, and I’ll show it to you.”

  Jeannie reluctantly followed Zeke, and Shain watched them walk away with a frown of annoyance on his face. “Zeke’s gonna blow this whole thing, if we don’t watch out. I’ll have to have a talk with him, too, before we leave.”

  Alaynia slowly nodded her head in agreement, but said, “This is horrible. He’s afraid of me, and it makes me feel terrible. I’ve never had that effect on anyone before.”

  Tucking her hand in his arm, Shain patted her fingers comfortingly and led her toward the barn. “Take it easy, now. Zeke just doesn’t understand what’s happened. For that matter, neither do any of the rest of us, including you. Zeke wouldn’t intentionally do anything to hurt you.”

  “Intentionally?” Alaynia said with a gasp. “You mean, he might do something unintentionally?”

  “I hope not,” Shain said in a grim voice. “Look, don’t worry about it. I’ll talk to him.”

  “Please do,” Alaynia whispered as they entered the shadowed recesses of the barn. She sensed a movement beside her and stared into two huge, blinking yellow eyes. After an initial start of anxiety, she laughed softly when she recognized a barn owl sitting on a shelf.

  “Look,” she said, tugging on Shain’s arm. “Isn’t he cute?”

  “Yeah, but don’t bother Jake’s owls,” Shain warned. “Some of them bite.”

  “I let them stay around to keep the mice out of here,” Jake explained as he walked over to them, wiping his hands on an already greasy rag. “Can’t abide cats—they’re such snotty creatures. Morning, Shain, Miss Mirabeau. Sorry to disappoint you, but I don’t know any more about that car than I did yesterday.”

  “I think you’re both going to have to understand something,” Alaynia said. “That car’s not what brought me here. Why, if that could happen, people would be traveling through time all over the place. In 2005, everybody over the age of sixteen owns a car.”

  “Really?” Jake said reverently. “Bet the man who owns the patent on those things is as rich as Midas.”

  “I have no idea how patents work,” Alaynia said with a shrug. “But there’s dozens of companies all over the world that make cars—everything from little compacts smaller than my rental car to huge limousines and buses that can carry dozens of people. I couldn’t begin to tell you how many different types of gasoline-powered vehicles there are in my time.”r />
  Excitement dancing in his eyes, Jake took Alaynia’s arm. “Well, little lady, why don’t you tell me all about the ones you can remember?” He walked her toward a bench along one side of the barn, near where another wall separated his workshop area from the rest of the open space. He dusted off the bench with the rag in his hand, but Shain spoke before Alaynia could sit down.

  “Sorry, Jake, but we don’t have time for that today. We’ve got some other things to talk about.”

  “How do you expect me to help Miss Mirabeau out, if we don’t spend some time together?” Jake said in an exasperated voice.

  “Tell you what,” Shain replied. “You can come over to Chenaie tomorrow morning and pick Alaynia up. No one will think it strange if she spends a day now and then with her uncle.”

  “Well, they diddly darn well better not!” Jake said huffily. “She’s my niece, after all. Those nosy busybodies in the parish can just wag their tongues about somebody else!”

  Alaynia frowned a little at what she considered Jake’s overreaction. Why, he almost sounded like he believed she really was related to him. Her puzzlement turned to anxiety when Jake sat down abruptly on the bench and wiped his face with the dirty rag.

  “Are you all right?” she asked.

  “Fine, fine,” he said, waving away her concern. “But Shain’s got a point there. From now on, I want you to call me Uncle Jake, and I’ll call you Alaynia. And you wear your best bib and tucker tomorrow, because we’re going into St. Francisville for lunch. Why, we’ll even do some shopping while we’re there.”

  He looked at Alaynia’s riding habit. “My niece ought to have lots of pretty dresses to wear, so I can show her off.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t accept—”

  “You don’t have to do that, Jake,” Shain interrupted in an irritated voice.