“Raissa, it’s dark here. Let me out.”
I rubbed the key in my left hand. I could open the lid. My mother would be with me. Then we could free my father. My family would be complete. But no matter the perfection of the scene I saw, I resisted. A whisper of defiance held me back. What was really in those coffins? My mother would never ask this of me. But I couldn’t refuse her. She sounded so alone and afraid. She’d save me. Of course, she would.
“The dead lie!” Madam’s voice came to me like a roar of wind.
“Raissa, remember the night you had such a high fever? Remember how I sat in a chair by your bed with cold compresses? We got ice from the ice house and filled a tub with water and put you in it. The doctor said we saved your life.”
The fever’s rage touched my skin again as heat coursed over me. More than anything I wanted my mother’s touch, the comfort of her hand on my forehead, the sweet whisper of her breath as she leaned down to kiss me. “Mama.” I moved to the foot of the casket and unscrewed the opening to insert the key.
I heard her shifting and banging on the casket now, eager to get out. Impatient that I didn’t move faster.
“Raissa!” There was command in her voice now. “Let me out.”
I inserted the key in the hole and turned it once.
“Yes, that’s my good girl.”
“Never trust the dead, Raissa. Not the dark entities.” Madam fought against the pull of my mother’s demand. “Don’t let her out. It isn’t who you think it is.”
“Get out of my head!” I couldn’t concentrate on turning the key as long as Madam yammered in my thoughts.
“Don’t do it, Raissa.”
I banged my head on the top of the casket. Madam was confusing me. She wasn’t even here and yet she intruded. My mother was a prisoner and I could save her. I gave the key another twist.
The smell of Sulphur and decay came from the casket.
“I want out!”
The key slipped from my hand and fell to the floor with a clatter. I backed away.
“Let me out or you’ll be sorry.”
I turned from the altar and ran. I ran out of the sanctuary, out of the chapel, out into the air.
The sound of a car horn nearly split my eardrum. I recoiled and lost my balance, falling and rolling in the hot sand of the road.
“Jesus, Raissa!” Reginald hopped out of the car and ran to me. He pulled me into his arms and held me. I shivered in the brutal heat.
“I almost hit you!” he said. “You came out of the woods like Satan was on your tail.”
I looked around me. Dust and sand from the yellow road clung to my sweating body. The stench of panic and fear was all over me. “My mother. She’s in a casket and needs me to let her out.” I didn’t cry, but I wanted to. “Only I don’t believe it was my mother. It was something else. Something dead and evil.”
“Get in the car.” He helped me up and almost carried me to the passenger side. When I was seated, he closed the door and got behind the wheel. It was a tight turnaround, but he managed it. He sped down the road at a dangerous pace, but I didn’t care. The wind cooled my flushed and stinking body. The sun burned away the images of the horrific stained-glass windows, the twin coffins, just as they’d been set up for my real parents.
“It wasn’t my mother.” I looked at him. “Was it?”
“You know it wasn’t. Your mother isn’t locked in a casket. Nor your father. They may visit you, because they’re watching over you. But they are free to come and go as they please, Raissa.”
“It was Gabriel, or whoever he is. He put that in my brain.”
“I believe you’re right. He’s very powerful and very dangerous. Did he say what he wanted?”
I bit my bottom lip. The pain kept the tears at bay. “He did.”
“What? What does he want from you and Elizabeth?”
“He wants Callie. And he means to get her.”
Chapter 26
The drive back to Elizabeth’s, with the wind blowing in my face and cooling my neck, helped me find my balance again. Somehow, I would have to figure out how to put up a barricade to prevent Gabriel from entering my mind, from manipulating my memories and visions. Whenever I thought of my mother inside the coffin, begging to get out, I felt as if I’d betrayed her. Betrayed and abandoned.
Gabriel had been able to use the people I loved most against me. I couldn’t let it happen again, because each time my resolve to fight him grew weaker.
When we drew up to Elizabeth’s yard, a quiver of something unpleasant pulsed through me, gone before I could truly feel it or attempt to understand it. I’d learned that sensation was something I needed to pay attention to, and I scanned the area for the watchers. Sometimes spirits presented to me in dreams or by sound or even by scent. But some came as a sensation, a knowing. Madam called it clairgnosis. She said it was information that entered the body through the crown and that it was a pure message, the highest gift. “Some sensitives who have clairgnosis believe it is the spirit world protecting them, offering warnings.”
I didn’t have the sensation often, but this time it had been strong. Danger was nearby, though not clearly evident. I needed to develop my skills, to hone this ability so that I could interpret the things I perceived from the other plane.
If Reginald and I could ever close this case, I planned on going to New Orleans for the month of October and studying with Madam. There was so much to learn, and right now I needed wisdom I didn’t have.
“What’s wrong?” Reginald asked as he stopped the car. “You look like someone walked on your grave.”
“Don’t say that!” My mother’s plaintive scratching on the coffin hit me hard. The idea of her, buried, trying to get out, was like being flayed alive.
“Raissa, what is it?”
I drew in a deep breath and blew it out. “Something bad is going to happen.”
“How do you know?” He was worried now. He didn’t take my pronouncements lightly.
“I don’t know how I know, I just know. How much longer do you think it will be before Michael and Slater get here?” We had to leave Elizabeth’s house and fast.
“Not long. Let’s get Elizabeth and Callie in the car. We want to be pointed south the minute they arrive.”
“Yes. That’s the plan.” I got out of the car and strode across the yard. My legs were aching from riding the horse, a forewarning of the pain that was to come. The front door opened and Elizabeth came out of the house. A handsome man with her same black hair and golden amber eyes assisted her, holding Callie in his arms. I stopped in my tracks. It had to be her brother Ramone.
“Raissa! Reginald! Look who’s here.” Elizabeth was ecstatic. “It’s Ramone! He found me instead of me finding him.”
Ramone leaned over to kiss Elizabeth’s cheek. “I worried my sister needlessly, but it wasn’t completely my fault. I’ll explain everything once we’re on the road away from here, but we have to hurry.” He assisted Elizabeth into a cowhide rocker on the front porch.
“You have to hear what happened to Ramone,” Elizabeth said. She couldn’t stop looking at her brother, reaching out to pluck his shirtsleeve or touch his hand—just to be certain he was truly standing beside her. “He was held prisoner, but he escaped.”
The joy in Elizabeth’s face was like the sun rising over a frozen setting, warming everything into spring. Her love for Ramone was clear to see, as was his for her.
“Ramone, this is Raissa and Reginald, my new friends. They saved my life. Ramone is going to help us escape. He has an idea that could really work.”
“That’s a plan I want to hear,” Reginald said.
“Come inside. I’ll make some coffee. Or maybe the men would prefer a drink.” She smiled, but I could see the sheer exhaustion in her face. She’d almost died, and here she was up and trying to play hostess.
“Sit down at the kitchen table and I’ll make whatever you tell me. We just have to be ready to go when Michael and Slater get here.”
Gabriel had said Ramone was alive and that he would be a gift to Elizabeth. I knew that demons lied, but this time, I hoped he’d told the truth. Elizabeth had longed to reconnect with Ramone. If it turned out this was one of Gabriel’s tricks, she would be devastated.
“Who is Michael?” Ramone asked.
I let Elizabeth explain about the former Pinkerton as I made coffee for me and Elizabeth and poured a small amount of whiskey for the men. Ramone knocked his back quickly but declined a refill. “I need my wits about me.”
Elizabeth held Callie on her lap while I loaded water and the full gas can into the car. Reginald’s and my belongings were still at Hattie’s, and that’s where they would stay. There was nothing there—except some short stories I’d intended to work on—that I required. Hattie could mail those to me in Mobile.
Reginald checked over the engine and the gasoline supply. The tank was full and we should have no trouble getting to Victoria, or much farther if we didn’t feel safe in the bigger town. I watched the men talk and work as I did what I could to prepare to escape.
I was rearranging the bags to tie to the rear of the car when I heard Ramone talking. “Do you really think McEachern is innocent?” he asked.
“I do,” Reginald said. “More importantly, your sister is positive he’s been framed. You should ask her about it.”
“I didn’t want to stress her. She told me she’d been injured but she wouldn’t give details. Only that we would all escape together.”
“I don’t understand how she’s up and about. She should be unconscious in bed. She came very close to dying.”
“Do you know why she’s so determined to save this man?” Ramone asked. “She’s always been one to take in the homeless and the strays, the people society forgets, but she’s never befriended a murderer before. Those people don’t always repay her in kind, if you know what I mean.”
“I do,” Reginald said. “Offering a hand to some is seen as an opportunity to take the whole arm. Your sister has a keen ability to see things. I trust her judgement. And keep in mind that McEachern is an accused murderer. There have been other attacks on women in Victoria. By an ax-wielding man. It wasn’t McEachern.”
“Do you know who it was?” Ramone asked as he checked the tires on the car.
“We’re going to find out.” Reginald looked around. “How did you get here?”
I looked around too. There wasn’t another car in evidence, or a horse. Ramone was lean and fit and likely walked in, but the convenience of his timing niggled at me. How had he suddenly appeared, just at the moment we meant to make our getaway?
“I hitchhiked up from Victoria. It’s a long story.” He glanced to be sure Elizabeth wasn’t listening. “Not everyone welcomes a Gypsy salesman traveling through. I ran afoul of some men who thought it funny to keep me prisoner and make me work for them.” He held out his wrists to show us scars. “When I wasn’t working, they kept me tied up.”
Reginald looked up at him in shock. “Like a slave?”
“Of a sort. But as I led them to believe I had no interest in my freedom, they grew lax and I was able to slip away. I caught a ride here. I’d heard that Elizabeth was looking for me. I don’t trust anyone, so I got the farmer to let me out of his wagon at the edge of town going the opposite direction of this farm.” He shook his head slowly. “He seemed like a normal farmer and I was tempted to beg a ride here instead of that long walk, but I just don’t trust anymore.”
“Smart thinking,” Reginald said. He bent back to work.
“You mentioned that Elizabeth sees things…what kind of things did you mean?” Ramone asked. “Our family has always been gifted with special…talents. Some are not as—” He broke off when I slammed the car door. “Raissa, can I help you carry anything out?”
“That was the last of it. What are the gifts in the Maslow family?”
“I’m a gifted salesman. Something Elizabeth both appreciates and also disdains. In the past, I’ve used that skill to better myself rather than other people. I’ve learned a lot in the last year.”
“Why didn’t you ever write Elizabeth?”
“Most of the time, I couldn’t. I was watched closely. But even when I could, I didn’t want to bring trouble down on her. I see now that she managed to do that all by herself.” His grin was wry. “Finding trouble is a true Maslow talent.” His smile disappeared. “Elizabeth has a strong connection to the other side, the place of spirits.” He watched me. “She tells me that you share that gift.”
“Not the way she does. Elizabeth has…” How could I tell him that she’d conceived a child with a demon? I didn’t finish my thought, but Ramone ignored the lapse and continued.
“Each gift is unique, special. Perhaps it’s why you’ve been drawn here to help her.”
“I don’t know. I only know that if we get out of this place without further injury, we’ll be very lucky. Who held you prisoner, Ramone? Elizabeth had given up on you. She thought you were dead.”
“I almost was. It’s been a hard journey, and not the one I expected. The important thing is that I’m free and here to help my sister and my beautiful niece. Callie is…incredible. When I hold her, it’s like a deep peace touches me and all the pain and bitterness and loss of the past are more easily shouldered.”
He perfectly described the effect Callie had on me. “We have to protect her at all costs.”
“Protect her from who? From what?”
“There’s a man who intends to take Callie.”
Ramone sucked in a breath. “I had a sense that Elizabeth was in serious trouble. Thank goodness you and Reginald arrived to help her. What man is after her?”
“He’s a very bad man. If he gets the child, I believe his goal is to corrupt her.”
“An infant?”
“Turn her from the light to darkness.” I couldn’t be more specific. Ramone only needed to understand how real the threat was and how his niece had to be saved. “This is bigger than money or land or power. This is…eternal.”
To my relief, he didn’t laugh. “My niece won’t be going anywhere with anyone other than me.”
“Thank you.” I didn’t trust Ramone completely. He seemed sincere, and Elizabeth was aglow with the joy of seeing him. We certainly wouldn’t leave him behind, and for Elizabeth’s sake, I hoped he was what he said he was.
Chapter 27
Even though the day was fading, the oppressive heat had us all sweating. When we had the car ready and there was nothing left to do but wait, I went to the hand pump in the backyard and filled a bucket with water. I poured it over me, easing the sting of the yellow fly bites I’d gotten in the woods. Surely Michael and Slater would soon arrive.
Ramone went inside to check on Elizabeth and Callie. He came back to the door. “Coffee’s ready,” he said. “Come take a break. We can plan the escape route.”
I’d been giving our escape some thoughts myself. I was worried about the horses and what would happen if we left them either free to roam or shut up in the pasture. Someone might not give them water, or if they were loose, they could run into the road on a dark night and be struck by a vehicle. I had come up with a counter-plan which would also ease the overcrowding in the car. When we’d considered our escape, we’d planned on Elizabeth, Callie, Reginald, Michael, and me. Now Ramone and Slater would be added to the mix, creating a very tight situation in the car. But I could ride Mariah and pony Michael’s horse over to Hattie’s. I believed Hattie would hide me, even lie to protect me. It would only be a day at the most. Once Reginald was in Victoria with access to a telephone or telegraph, he could contact Uncle Brett. I knew my uncle and his powerful friends. Aid would be on the way to me immediately, and anyone who dared to interfere would greatly regret it. The very idea of what Uncle Brett would do to Lucais and his lowbrow thugs gave me a jolt of visceral pleasure.
I went inside, calculating the best way to present my plan. Elizabeth sat at the table with a quiet and content Callie on her lap. She looked pale,
with high spots of color in her cheeks. When I touched her face, she was hot. If infection set in from the gunshot, she might not live. I wondered why Doc Wainwright had even patched her up, since he meant to betray us and turn us over to Lucais. As soon as we finished this conversation, I intended to check her wound, no matter how much she protested.
Reginald pulled out a pencil and paper and began drawing the roads around Mission. Elizabeth added the log trails that timbermen had cut across the woods. The problem was that these roads were often in very poor shape and unreliable. If there was a creek to cross, the car would have to be powerful enough to drive through it. If the car became stuck, the passengers would be sitting ducks. The watchers, those ugly buzzards, would find us and before long Gabriel would be there, ready to…take what he wanted.
When a route had been selected, Reginald sat back. His brow was shiny with sweat. The kitchen was close and the day had been long and horribly humid. “I want to stay behind.” I just said it.
“What?” Reginald was stunned. “That’s absurd.”
“No. I want to take the horses to Hattie’s. I’ll hide there until you can call Uncle Brett. He’ll send real law officers here. I’ll be fine until they get here.”
“That isn’t going to happen.” Reginald’s jaw set. He was not a man who thought that it was God’s plan that women obey him. He never tried to impose his will over mine—except when he feared for my safety.
“It’s a good plan, Reginald. No one will suspect I’m still here and I can look for evidence to prove Slater was framed.”
“If you stay, they’ll kill you if they find you.” Ramone shook his head. “You’re no match for these men, Raissa. You have a sense of fair play and justice and that will be your undoing.”
Arguing was pointless. The others might go to Victoria, but Reginald would not abandon me, even if he knew it meant death. I couldn’t put him in that danger. I let out a deep sigh. “Fine.”
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