by S. M. McCoy
Sounded like the reception was underway with the orchestra’s strings singing and the people humming with active discourse. The doors were open to the buzz of the ballroom with servers parading plates of food off to the tables and a few couples on the dance floor rocking slowly back and forth to the soft music. Round tables surrounded the dance floor, covered in cream cloth and decorated with purple masks with purple flowers as the centerpieces. Large columns stood elegantly at the corners of the marble floor with purple layered waterfall valances across the ceiling. At the center of the ceiling was a large two-tiered chandelier dripping with strings of sparkling crystals. It wasn’t as large as the charity event space, but it surpassed it in beauty.
The man from the flower bed slouched in a chair a couple tables in, looking very pale. A girl was hanging on his arm and looking up at his face like a concerned mother. “You’ll pep up a bit after some food in your stomach, no more alcohol for you.”
Like a rag he continued to look used up staring at nothing, and saying nothing.
Aislin touched Cerise’s shoulder. Cerise, in a shock, pulled away and like lightning was five feet ahead of us. She turned around with stony eyes; in seconds her face smoothed into a smile and then continued walking to her table.
“Our table is here. Help yourselves, won’t you.”
“I didn’t mean to startle you.” Aislin’s smile was sly like she tried to startle her.
“Goodness no.” She laughed lightly then clapped her hands. “Garçon, my chair.”
I looked around to see the zombie slip from the young lady’s arms to head toward our table.
“Rueben,” the lady said warningly as he walked away, “Rueben!”
He pulled the chair from the table and Cerise sat for him to assist pushing it forward. The couples at the table looked to one another in that silent acknowledgment of something to gossip about later. When you’re rich or famous it seemed like gossip tended to accumulate in trunk loads.
Cerise’s eyes twinkled at the attention and she forgot her lack of manners toward other people momentarily to thank the young man who was probably exhausted due to her turning him into her servant. Why he did it I would probably never understand.
“Merci, garçon. Would you care to join us?”
The lady stepped up to the table and clung to Reuben’s arm, once again raising her eyebrows at Cerise.
“He will politely decline. He has started on a meal at our table, best not to waste, you see.” She began to drag him back when Cerise interrupted her departure.
“Plates are not glued to the tables, mademoiselle. Garçon, fetch your food from the other table and carry it here. Would you like him to fetch yours as well?” She sweetly looked up at the young lady.
Without even a grunt he sluggishly grabbed his plate and placed it next to hers with the lady following him with her own plate. She slid his plate over a spot and placed hers between them.
“Would you tell us that story?” Aislin took the seat next to her and as she sat it was noticeable that Cerise didn’t like her so near.
As I was about to take the seat next to Aislin the gentleman coughed, shook his head and placed a napkin upon the chair. The table was full.
And so was my own patience meter.
I didn’t come here to party nor did I come here to follow Cerise around like a lost pet yearning for attention. I came for answers. I came for protection. I came for the chance at turning things around. To prolong my life not to die at the hands of socialites.
Death by pointless chatter.
I wanted answers; I needed answers.
“The story, yes, I remember. It can wait, doll.” She looked up at me and continued, “Dance for me, will you.”
Not a request but again another demand of another Cerise minion. Considering the circumstances, what choice did I have but to comply? She was in control of the dance so far but in time I would figure out the niche to lead her into the questions I needed answered.
But for now, I would dance.
From across the room his blue eyes locked on me. Angled cheeks like a Saxon warrior, and his blond hair slicked back. Something in the way he looked at me made me hold on to the seat of my chair.
“Dance for me.” Cerise tipped her glass of champagne in my direction.
“May I have this dance?” Another gentleman offered his hand, dressed to the nines like an old-school movie star. Above his eye I could see part of his finely groomed brow was missing, and a light scar from there, over those blue eyes and down to his ear. Victor?
“Clear the floor; let’s all gather our attention to the dance floor for the fabulous couple in their first dance to ‘Unforgettable.’” An announcer from the stage introduced the newlyweds and a slow clap erupted from the tables, loud whistles as they walked to the center of the dance floor.
I grabbed his offered hand and stared at him.
Nat King Cole, a touching slow rumba played, but he didn’t take me to the dance floor where people started to gather around the newlyweds.
“Aren’t they precious?” a woman beside me asked.
“They are in their own world,” I responded and the man squeezed my hand, still staring into those blue eyes. I hadn’t noticed the couple on the dance floor.
“Perfect. That’s the way it should be. Thankfully they are, otherwise their day might be spoiled by some of the guests this evening.” She slightly tapped my arm in a you-know-what-I-mean kind of nudge.
“Always a risk for every wedding, I assume.”
“When you’re with the one you love, everything else falls away,” he finally spoke and my breath hitched.
“Vi—”
“The other lady in white over there goes to practically every wedding held here. She creates a lot of buzz, but I’ve never heard of her causing a scene. See that man next to her. He’s a very well off young businessman and the reason for the hubbub.
“He’s been following her around like a servant—which isn’t the odd part because she always has someone assisting her, but the issue is the young lady Hanna, who plans on making the young man settle down and stop his philandering ways. But he’s never looked at her twice and is quite envious of the hostess and the attention she’s been receiving from him. They’re the talk of the wedding. It’s shameful when the attention should be on the bride and groom, don’t you think?” The woman gossiped to us, but neither of us was paying much attention to her before my escort responded.
“Do you know more about the hostess?”
“I only know a bit and raw rumors from tabloids and such. That lady there is full of stories, mostly of men waiting on her hand and foot with nothing to show for it but exhaustion. I’ve heard a particular story, though, about the previous owner of this estate that’s quite delicious.”
“Oh, do tell,” he egged her on.
“It has to do with her ancestors who took over the place after the death of the last heir of the Masons. The peculiar thing about her is that every year late November, supposedly when the man died, she visits his grave. People speculate that maybe her ancestors had some connection with the previous owners. But it’s quite strange, if you ask me, that a couple generations later even with a connection that she would continue to religiously visit the site.”
“Strange.”
The Masons and Cerise’s family.
“Precisely what I was saying. It’s said that the man died young around your age, I’d say. Supposedly his family built this place. ’Course there’s been renovations and the like to keep it spruced up since then. But no one knows what happened to him; he disappeared and was assumed dead.” She whispered the last part as if there was a deep scheme behind Cerise’s family getting a hold of this mansion.
“Disappeared and forgotten,” I said in a kind of suspended reverence. I knew a thing or two about disappearances and lost memories.
“Truly a sad thing for such a young man, but no matter—it’s just speculation, you see. No one can say whether or not she and her family
have anything to do with it, but isn’t it thrilling to think of the scandal and possibilities like Clue, I’d say.”
“Are you going to stand and gab all day or join us for pictures? If you’re not in it, were you even here?” a man from behind her offered his arm and she placed her hand upon it.
“Oh, we can’t have that, can we?” She giggled and looked back at me once more, “Scarlett in the study with a candlestick, my dear.” Smiling, she continued to talk to the gentleman beside her and walked off in search of the photographer.
Scarlett, Miss Cerise, in the study, her history, with a candlestick, a light into the mystery. Like Clue, you’ll never know what will end up in the classified envelope until you sneak a peek or by the process of elimination and deductive reasoning. But in regards to history there were too many possibilities and so many speculations that it was best to find out direct from a reliable source, if available, and even then it’s biased and potentially incorrect. On the other hand, if there was more than one source and they both state the same conclusion then the odds were it was reality not speculation.
I smiled up at the man, who reminded me of…the man I danced with. He reminded me of Victor. Both of us solving mysteries together.
One source: Cerise.
Second source…to be determined.
“Vic—”
“Shhh, I knew you’d recognize me. She can’t know that I’m talking to you.”
I flinched at the confirmation and he held on to my hand against his arm trying to ease my nerves. I felt it was him, but everything was so new, I was still startled that it was. That he shifted.
I remained silent. What was I supposed to say to him? “I’m so glad that you’re okay, but we have a lot to talk about”?
“I found a way to protect us from the Council, and find your mother at the same time. I need you to trust me right now. I can’t tell you anything, but when I do I need you to remember this and try not to be angry with me.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “I don’t know how much longer I can take the secrets. I know I lied to you about who I was before the studio, but I never lied to you about who I was with you.”
“Sweets, I felt you that night, you were a part of me, and it was the most real thing you’ve ever shared with me, but it was also a wake-up call. We have little time.” He dragged me to the buffet dessert table and handed me a plate to distract Cerise from noticing us. I nearly looked back at the table before he pulled me closer to him.
“Don’t look. I didn’t mean time here, though that’s true. I mean your energy is different—it isn’t you, and it isn’t serpent. Crystal, I can’t lose you, not like this. I’ve tried everything I can think of. This is our last shot.”
He looked deep into my eyes and his lean body hovered close to me protectively. I could feel him then, his energy, he was giving it to me, and it tasted delicious. I took a deep breath and he smelled like the woods after a fresh rain, and I remembered how I held his jacket to my face and slept with it against me in my bed.
In the blink of an eye, it was like he was never there. He didn’t even say goodbye, and my heart ached.
What was he planning?
What did he mean my energy was different?
I felt water drip from my ear, I pressed into the throbbing at the side of my head and wiped at the liquid. My ear was bleeding, and I quickly grabbed one of the black table napkins and held it to my side.
Walking out of the ballroom I could feel a shock stream through my chest. It pulsed slow yet stable like molasses flowing through a straw. Giving a tense uncomfortable feeling affecting my breathing, like my airway was being constricted. So much air yet no retention.
I entered the sitting room and on the wall was another portrait.
No name.
Her brown hair was pulled back and gathered in a white beaded net with two white roses on either side. Soft café-colored skin a few shades darker than her cream dress. Looking off into the distance almost longingly, maybe mixed with sadness. She sat in a chair near the window. No jewelry. No smile. But there was something mischievous in her eyes. The artist captured something there this time.
Clutching my hand to my chest, I couldn’t breathe. Closing my eyes, I looked at the painting again.
The woman in the painting turned to look at me.
A small smile formed and the hand on her lap turned up, in invitation, revealing a red vial encapsulated in crystal attached to a thin chain.
My labored breathing was blurring my surroundings, making me light headed. Opening my fist I brought my hand in front of my eyes to see the red vial within my grasp.
“Why do you sit and stare at that necklace? Put it away; you’re having your picture done.” A woman’s voice called to me, “You look pale, are you well?”
“A bit breathless, Mother, is all.” The words fell out of my mouth. I was now sitting in the same spot, in the chair near the window.
My heart fluttered for a moment, looking around for my mother. So many ways I imagined meeting her, but the older woman in front of me wasn’t my mother. Next to her was a lady staring at me with her paint brush in the air.
“Did Hope lace up your bodice too tight again?” She laughed.
“No, it’s my fault, I asked her to for the portrait.” Again words seemed to flow from my cords, like a puppet. I had no control. An observer in very realistic dream.
Hope…
“I am sorry miss.” She looked at the lady from behind the canvas.
She was gorgeous. Smooth chocolate skin, hair pulled back in a braided bun, and a long flowing light blue dress. Dark chocolate eyes, sparkling.
“I can’t breathe…”
“We can finish this later, I’ll loosen the bodice.” She placed the brush down. Undoing the strings of the dress, creating some breathing room in the undergarment she then strapped the dress back together.
“Thank you,” I said absently, looking at the vial in my hand again, then out the window.
“Are you thinking of the gathering at the Masons’ house tonight?”
“Yes, of course. Do you plan to go?”
“Not unless you are. Some of the guests aren’t welcoming.”
“Hope, you’re free as much as I am. You’re as much my sister as any other and I refuse to go somewhere you are unwelcome.” I continued to stare out the window; miffed at the world. My own skin was disgusting to me. I rubbed the long gloves, covering as much of it as possible.
“I’ll go, if you are attending. I have word that Mr. Mason is expecting you to attend. I believe he fancies you.”
“My dear, the whole state knows that. Visiting every week for tea. Calling on her attendance to all sorts of gatherings. I believe he creates the gatherings for her, if I am to be so bold as to say.” The lovely older woman smiled broadly. “Don’t be so reserve about the matter; it’s no secret, and if it were I am sure it would be more known than it is now.”
“Mother.”
“Yes, I know.”
“You know, yet you persist… We cannot be.”
“Dear, he wants you to join him. You won’t find a better man these days who believes in the same values you do. No other suitor would…”
“Would what? Marry your illegitimate daughter?”
“No dear, no other suitor would dare cross the Mason family. What they want, they get, even if others would ill advise a union.”
“Did you hear the progress being made in Washington? Soon it will be the same here. Hope nor myself would have to worry about carrying papers after that day. Maybe we should move there, Mother.”
“No dear, no sense in running away. That doesn’t change things for the better here. Think about all of the people safe on our estate, and further still on the Mason’s estate. Do you think they will be fine if we move and Mr. Mason is surely to follow?”
“Rightly so. Hope, I do not wish to go somewhere you are not welcome, so I will not be attending. That is that.”
I sensed that I had other
plans in mind. Plans, before. I knew there would be unpleasant company attending. I felt scared.
“It’s finished.”
“Oh, may I have a look?”
“Of course.”
“It looks splendid.”
“Beautiful.” The mother stated, “What were you thinking?” She pondered and continued, “There is something thoughtful in your eyes, my dear.”
The scene seemed to speed forward like a movie on fast forward until I turned around to see Hope in the door frame.
“Grace. Where are you off to?”
“To the plantation.”
Hope’s lips moved like she was saying something and she waved.
Walking along the path surrounded by brush and forest is not what frightened me. It’s people like this plantation owner that made my whole body tremble. Why was I going alone in the middle of war time? Everything pointed to this being during the beginning of the Civil War.
As I turned the woods transformed, trees rushing around me blurring into pictures and a white pillared house. An older lady conversed with a young gentleman in the sitting room. Upon my entrance the man stood, regal, and his hair slicked back. He turned around and if I could gasp I would have—he looked exactly like Damien.
“I’ve come to ensure your attendance at the gathering tonight,” he said to me while beaming with an enthusiasm I hadn’t felt in a long time. I couldn’t shake that this was more than a dream, and he looked so different and yet exactly the same.
“Will you walk with me in the garden?” Whoever I was inside knew him, and there was love there, I felt it.
“Certainly.” He offered his arm to me. Everything was so real, even his touch felt the way I remembered, cold and warm at the same time.
We both walked in silence and lucky for me, he was the one to break it.
“We are meant to be together. Do you not feel it?” My whole body was pounding against myself; it was like he was talking directly to me. That he saw me in here. Like a noose wrapped around me pulling me to him.
“It is not that I do not feel it. It is that I wish not to be Drawn into love, but truly possess it. Is it not enough that I wish to be with you?” she asked, and it was like she was speaking exactly what I was feeling.
