A Stranger in Alcott Manor

by Alyssa Richards

  She stood, unable to bear the feel of Mrs. Miller touching any part of her.

  “We can make new tintypes, place them next to the old ones. I think visitors will just love seeing Alcott ancestors next to living Alcott family members. And wearing the same clothes as they did in the same family home? They’ll eat that up.”

  Peyton stepped away, let the idea run around in her head. She had hoped Mrs. Miller would leave the manor while she worked there over the next few days. Being around her was too much.

  But her suggestion had merit. And though she didn’t want to accept it, Mrs. Miller’s extra help to get the job done was just what she needed.

  “I’ve given a lot of thought to this,” Mrs. Miller said. “I could type up the history on some cards. Jayne Ella, I can tell you which rooms the mannequins and their outfits go in, I’ll organize the right pictures so they’ll sync up with the rooms and the outfits. Peyton, you can organize the exhibits—diaries and ladies’ ornamental fans and china and so forth. You can tell us what changes you want in the exhibits from there, but maybe this is a start that helps you.

  “And if we get this done before the bank rolls in tomorrow, maybe it will be enough to stave off Austin Spencer and his henchmen. That ought to leave you plenty of time to do the work you get paid for, sweetheart. And get married, of course. We can improve the tour as time goes along. What’s most important is that we have a good, solid start.” Mrs. Miller’s smile lacked warmth.

  Unnervingly, she was right. Their assistance would give Peyton the time she needed to work on branding and tourism alliances for the manor, and to finish her proposal for work.

  The breeze of an invisible presence left goosebumps on Peyton’s skin. She rubbed her arms.

  “Where is that draft coming from?” Jayne Ella asked. She crossed her arms

  “It’s the memories.” Mrs. Miller squinted her eyes at the ceiling. “The house is full of them. They move through here constantly.”

  “Well, you tell us what to do and we’ll do it,” Jayne Ella said, ignoring Mrs. Miller’s comment. “Then you can dedicate more of your time to getting the tourists in.”

  Mrs. Miller swayed side to side as if she soothed a baby in her arms. She had always done that, even more so when Peyton was little. When Mrs. Miller’s daughter asked her why she rocked like that she said, “Oh, Ruby Lee. I started doing this on the day you were born, and you loved it so much I guess it became a habit. Now I don’t even notice when I’m doing it.”

  The bottom steps of the grand staircase came in and out of view as Mrs. Miller moved across Peyton’s field of vision. Fuzzy images stirred in the recesses of her brain.

  “Okay. Let’s do it,” Peyton finally said when she knew she really had no way out.

  “The manor never forgets,” Mrs. Miller mumbled to herself as she left the room. “I’m right about most things where the manor is concerned.” She ran her hand along the marble wall as she passed, as if she stroked a pet. “Living memories. Secrets that won’t be kept. That’s what the manor’s all about.”

  The woman had a special link to a darker side of Alcott Manor, a fact that Peyton found unnerving. She hoped that Mrs. Miller was wrong. She didn’t want to remember what happened in the manor when she was little, because she was certain that if those memories resurfaced, whatever they were, they would break her.

  5

  Peyton looked over the wide selection of dresses that were hung on a rack at the front of the room. Each of them was hauntingly beautiful. Bright golden orange with black lace, blood red with a deep v-neck. They were too pretty to be on mannequins, too exquisite to be relegated to an exhibit. It made her sad to know the dresses would never have another life.

  Mrs. Miller was right. Tour guests would love a historical photo next to a newly made tintype, both with Alcott women, and identical Alcott Manor outfits and backgrounds. They only needed a few of those, maybe one or two per room, possibly less. Those displays would be the talk of the tour. They might even make the paper with them.

  Jayne Ella had gone for her curling iron, hairspray, and hairpins. Mrs. Miller had taken the camera to the kitchen to give it a good dusting. Layla was tired from work and went home.

  Peyton paused in front of a light blue bustled dress and ran her fingers along the delicate layers of fabric cascading in measured lengths down the skirt. It was her color and the size looked about right. She also liked the white gauzy fabric that stretched over the décolleté. This dress was the same one from the tintype she’d seen earlier, the one with Beau’s lookalike.

  The energy in the room seemed to twist and swirl, winding around her, knocking her off-kilter. It dragged her into its force, capturing her mind, monopolizing her thoughts. So many memories of her time with Beau spun through her mind, like someone pressed play on a movie reel. She tried to get control, to direct her own thinking. But the room fell away and she was left with the first time he had spoken to her.

  “Marry me, Peyton Alcott.” Beau had driven up beside her in the high school parking lot while she walked from her last class to her convertible red VW bug. His light blue eyes were so intense they were nearly electric, as if his future was bursting to get out.

  “Get real, Beau Spencer.” She rolled her eyes at him. But she nearly dissolved into a puddle when she heard his voice. There was something in his melodic baritone that reached right into her chest and plucked the strings of her heart, as if only he knew how.

  “Then let me at least take you to dinner,” he said.

  She stopped walking and looked at him. Straight blond hair poking out of the back of his baseball cap, his tanned arm perched on the rolled down window, he looked the part of the all-American boy.

  “Come on, you can’t resist.” His smile picked up wattage.

  She studied him for a long moment, then walked on. “Oh, I can, actually.”

  Beau Spencer was trouble. Hadn’t taken her more than a half a minute to see that. It wasn’t his good looks or the fact that his parents lavished their money on him. Unlike most teenagers in that situation, he seemed to have a mind of his own.

  No, it was his eyes. Gypsy eyes, Peyton called them. The boy was made to roam. Last thing she wanted was to fall in love with someone who would leave her.

  Beau kept up this daily routine for weeks—following her, flirting with her, occasionally asking he out. Until one day after school he approached her, a 35mm camera slung over his shoulder. He asked her to join him for a sunset picnic on the beach.

  It wasn’t the usual movie date invitation. Neither was it the yacht club/country club dinner date she had heard from him before. Interesting. But the thing she noticed most was that something had calmed in those brilliant eyes of his.

  “Please?” he begged.

  She wondered if maybe he wanted her more than he needed to drift around the world. She fought the one side of her mouth that wanted to tip in a smirk. “Fine. Since you said please.”

  From that date onward she knew that Beau was who she wanted, she knew their love was strong enough to keep them together. Even when he was a no-show at the church, she was certain she hadn’t been wrong.

  The night before their wedding, Peyton saw Beau grab his blond hair with both fists countless times. “He can’t do this to me!” he yelled.

  Beau was set to inherit a significant chunk of his trust fund in the following year, provided that he met certain conditions his grandfather set forth: He had to be a college graduate, have a stable job, no arrests or drug problems, and attend church regularly. He had met all of the terms.

  But Beau’s father managed to change those terms. Now Beau had to be employed at the bank if he wanted that portion of his inheritance. Austin’s bank. For at least seven years.

  Peyton suspected that Austin Spencer changed the terms of Beau’s inheritance because he didn’t want his son to marry her. He’d never said as much. But she’d always had the sense that he didn’t like her, in part because he had never been remotely warm toward her. A
lways kept his distance.

  Austin told Beau that he needed a backup plan. The bank would give him experience and an education that he could leverage if the “photography thing” didn’t work out. Peyton thought Austin changed the trust fund requirements with the hope that it would break her and Beau apart.

  Like a call she had to answer, she walked toward the kitchen, slowly, following the trail of her memories that wouldn’t let her go. The night before the wedding, they held their rehearsal dinner on the great lawn. Tradition said it was the groom’s family who typically hosted the rehearsal dinner, and Beau’s mother had organized a wonderful celebration at their country club. But at the last minute the club called to say that they had accidentally double booked their calendar and wouldn’t be able to accommodate them. Peyton suspected that Austin paid the country club to cancel the event.

  Their two families socialized on the great lawn instead, serenaded by a family friend who played guitar. The ocean crashed on the sand in the distance and the perfumed scents of roses, oleander and magnolia clung to the air. Tiki torches were lit around the perimeter. Even though it was light outside, the citronella-infused oil helped to keep the mosquitos away from the celebration. Everyone enjoyed extra helpings of shrimp and cheese grits, hush puppies, and buttered corn on the cob, catered by the Fish Shack. Except for Austin, who drank too much scotch.

  This was the night when Beau pulled Peyton inside Alcott Manor’s half-restored kitchen and gave her the news about how his father had applied new conditions to his trust fund.

  That was also the night when her dreams crashed. Not because she wanted his money. But because she needed to leave Charleston and her strange childhood memories behind her.

  She wrapped her arms around his waist. “Forget him. Forget the money. We’ll make our own money. Let’s get out of this town just the way we planned, and let’s get on with our new life together.”

  Beau turned away and ran a hand through his hair. His light blue eyes were darker in the shadows of the manor. A chill crept over her shoulders and down her back, as though secrets tapped her, asked her to remember. She glanced in the direction of the heart of the house, the space where the grand staircase poured into a wide reception area. She tried to usher them out of the manor, but Beau held her arm.

  “I love you for saying that. I knew the money was never important to you.”

  “I have to get outside, let’s talk about this later, like, after the party tonight?”

  “I can’t. I told your mother I would take photos of the restoration progress before the sun went down,” he said.

  “Then, tomorrow morning. Or tonight, come by my house after you take the shots. I really hate being inside this place.”

  “Peyton. I’m not going to let him win. My grandfather put that money aside for me. He told me I should use it to follow my heart, start my own business. That’s exactly what I intend to do. We’ll stay in Charleston while I work for him. Seven years isn’t that long, it will pass before we know it.”

  The idea of staying in Charleston, staying close to Alcott Manor and the memories she couldn’t completely recall all but suffocated her. She had to leave town, and she had to leave immediately. She couldn’t run away fast enough.

  “That’s not our plan. We already have jobs with the travel magazine,” she said. “I can’t walk away from that!” They had worked hard to find a magazine that would take them both, hire them as a couple. She wrote the articles, he shot the photography. “Besides, we can’t let him take control of our lives.”

  “You could get a job locally,” he said. “I can’t walk away from this money. It’s my money.” His cheeks flushed red as they usually did when he was angry.

  “That position with the magazine isn’t just a job. It’s your dream,” she said.

  “And this isn’t a few thousand dollars. We’re talking a lot of money here. Money that could really help us in life.”

  They argued, their words fueled by the passion of their youth. And maybe, she thought, by the strangeness of the manor. There was an energy there that was crazy-making. Tragic and twisted.

  “I have to leave!” she finally shouted.

  Beau stopped mid-sentence, watched her. “What are you talking about?”

  She placed her fingertips over her mouth. She couldn’t believe she had finally told him.

  “What’s going on, Pey?”

  Her eyes cut to the grand staircase. “I did something. A long time ago. And I need to get as far away from here as possible.”

  Beau glanced at the stairway, then looked back to her. “You need to tell me what happened.”

  She told him what she had never told another soul. That the night she remembered being in the manor, the night she sat on the grand staircase, alone, wet, and with blood covering the front of her dress, was the night Mrs. Miller’s daughter disappeared.

  “You were only ten back then, right? You wouldn’t have—”

  She held up her hand to stop him. “I-I can’t remember specifically what I did. But I do recall pieces of this particular memory and I think I—Ruby could be so awful. She was a real menace. She had this physical way of confronting people. I’m not saying that I intentionally hurt her. At least I don’t think I did. But it’s possible she came after me and I fought back, because Ruby hasn’t been seen since that night.” She felt a lightening in her chest, as if a tiny part of her secret had broken free from its too small cage.

  She tried hard to remember the specifics of what Ruby did to her. But critical pieces were missing from those memories, too. That part of her brain was silent, dead. She could only recall a handful of infuriating instances of how selfish Ruby had been. And how for as long as she could remember, she had wanted Ruby out of her life forever. At any cost.

  Beau’s mouth was slightly open. His stare wasn’t the usual gaze that held her close. Instead, it kept her at a distance, like she was someone he didn’t know.

  Her throat went dry.

  “I have to get out of this town and away from this place.” She gestured to the manor that seemed to lean in and listen to every word she said. “I couldn’t possibly stay here for seven years. Everywhere I turn in this town I think of Ruby—someplace we went together, some experience we shared, and the life she might have had if she lived.”

  “You don’t know that she’s dead. She could have been kidnapped. The manor wasn’t restored back then, you might have fallen. You might have been hurt. I know you, you would not have—”

  “I have never forgotten anything in my life. I can remember what my sister wore to my fifth birthday party. I remember every book we read in kindergarten. I remember the color of the socks you wore on our third date. My mind captures everything. That night in the manor, I can’t remember anything other than that one snippet. But I do remember how I felt. I know something horrible happened to Ruby that night and I think I’m the one who did it.” She turned away, unable to look at him.

  There was a loud crash. She spun around to see that Beau had thrown his beer bottle against the wall. Pieces of brown glass lay on the hardwood floor.

  “Beau—”

  “Why?” he yelled. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Her breaths were shallow and panicky. She fought the feeling that Beau was leaving, that she’d never see him again. “I know this isn’t something you ever expected to hear from me.”

  “No, you’re right, it’s not. I thought we told one another everything.”

  “I wanted to tell you, and I tried. But I didn’t want to ruin what we have.”

  “So you lied to me?”

  “I didn’t lie, I just thought you would leave if you knew—”

  “Damn it, Peyton!” he shouted. “That’s not lying?”

  “I’m sorry. I messed up.”

  He stared at her, shaking his head. After a long moment, he said, “I need time to think.” He walked toward the door.

  “Wait—what do you mean time to think?” She walked toward him. “We’
re getting married tomorrow. This doesn’t change anything. I’m still the same person I always was—”

  “This changes everything. Aside from your—news, the trust fund was how I planned to take care of us through the years. In case you didn’t notice, this magazine gig doesn’t pay squat. We were able to take low-paying jobs doing what we wanted because our savings was already set. If we don’t have that, then lots of things have changed. I don’t know where this leaves us.”

  “Then let’s talk about this. Beau!” Peyton reached for him but he turned away. Her heart thumped loudly in her head.

  “Maybe when you trust me, we can talk.” He walked out the door.

  That was the last time she saw him.

  Even so, Beau wouldn’t have left her. Not willingly. She remembered his bad habit of drinking too much when he was angry. For years she had worried that he had gotten into a car accident. Peyton squeezed her eyes shut for a long moment, not wanting to relive any more of that night.

  She walked to the ballroom. An email alert buzzed and the message popped up on her phone screen. It was the caterer confirming the final menu for the wedding.

  Her upcoming wedding with Ira felt strangely entwined with the tragedies in the manor, tangled with her unresolved past with Beau and frightful childhood memories that refused to come forward. The manor’s walls pressed more tightly around her. It was a mixture of Alcott stories with too much life to them still and the memory of Beau that reached for her. As if he needed to tell her something about that night when he disappeared.

  She turned her attention to the gowns, undressed one of the mannequins, accidentally removing one of its arms in the process. She slipped out of her tailored black suit and wiggled into the blue dress, careful not to rip any of the antique stitching. She looked at her image in a foggy, dress-length, antique mirror. The dress was a tad short. She would have to pose for the picture sitting down. Or Mrs. Miller would need to move the camera closer so her bare feet and ankles wouldn’t show.