A Stranger in Alcott Manor

by Alyssa Richards

  He was never the same after that. It was the vulnerability of it all, she suspected. The fact that his watch sat with the gold, that she could have turned him in whenever she wanted.

  Not anymore, though. Not now that he had the upper hand. If she made an anonymous call to the cops, if they found the gold and put Austin in jail, the bank would still move ahead with calling the loan.

  Truth be known, she wanted her share of the gold.

  He stood and looked out the window at the ocean in the distance for a long while. Without thinking, she slid her arms around his waist and held on. It was the first time she had touched him like this in recent years. She just wanted a moment of feeling close to him. She was prepared for him to pull away.

  But she hadn’t been prepared for him to turn and kiss her.

  His kisses had always been passionate, never the stiff-lipped pecks she had seen him give his wife. For a few precious moments she felt as though they were a couple again, planning the next few hours they would steal with one another.

  When they parted, his eyes stayed closed for a moment. He licked his lips as if he savored her taste. “I’ve missed that,” he whispered.

  She wanted to say, “Me, too.” But she held her tongue. She had learned the hard way that she couldn’t trust Austin Spencer. Not when it counted. For years he’d told her that he was leaving Blair for her. But when she finally divorced her husband, Austin didn’t go through with his end of the bargain. He’d stayed with Blair. For money and status, she knew. That was when she began to use the gold and his watch to her advantage.

  “I’ve spent too much of my life reliving what happened here and worrying what would happen next,” he finally said. “I’m wrapping up all my loose ends.”

  She reluctantly let him go, ran a finger below her bottom lip to remove any smudged lipstick.

  “Give me unmonitored access to the manor—inside and out—for twelve hours,” he said. “As long as you keep paying off the loan on time, I’ll find a way to keep the bank off your back. Then, I’ll pay off Mrs. Miller. If Blair does find out about our past, I’ll do what I can there in terms of damage control. If Peyton is as good as you say she is, then maybe she can get enough tourists coming in even without Blair’s clout.”

  “That wouldn’t be easy. We wouldn’t have much in-town support, if any.”

  “I agree with that. But at least your family wouldn’t lose the manor.”

  “Damn it, Austin. Why can’t you just let the gold sit there for a while longer? Digging it all up right now is going to put us more at risk.”

  “Do you know how many times I’ve heard you give me that excuse? There’s never a good time. Honestly, it’s time for me to live my own life.”

  She ran her hands over her face, worry clawing at her from the inside. “Your plan is missing one consideration.”

  “Oh? What would that be?”

  “Peyton.”

  Austin shrugged. “She hasn’t remembered anything in the last twenty some odd years. She’s not going to remember now.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong. Because she has started remembering that night.”

  15

  When Peyton arrived in the corner of the 1850s ballroom, her vision was blurry. She was hunched over in a chair that was exactly like the one she had seen in pictures over the years and placed in the same location she had begun. Only a hundred years or so of difference.

  Couples twirled about in pairs to the music of a chamber orchestra. She rubbed at her eyes, the people in the room resembled a fuzzy Renoir painting at a distance. Swirling, tilting heads, leaning this direction and that, to the lilting tune of a waltz. Somewhere beneath all the beauty was a secret deep enough that it was still destroying lives.

  She stood. Woozy. Several people approached her through the crowd. She fumbled for something to say. She hadn’t thought to assemble a cover story. What would she tell people in terms of a name and background? How would she find Beau?

  Maybe these were Alcott relatives wondering who she was, wanting to see her invitation to the soiree. She cleared her throat, pressed her hands against the front of her dress to smooth the wrinkles.

  “You came back to me,” a man said from behind her. His voice was as smooth as liquid chocolate.

  “Beau!” So excited that she had made it to the right location, the tintype where he was, she leaned toward him, nearly hugged him until he stopped her. He laced her hand around the crook of his arm. “Come with me. Let’s get some fresh air.”

  They began a formal stroll across the ballroom floor, in step with one another. He held tight to her hand, kept it pressed to his arm as if she were somehow at risk of flying away and she needed to be held close. Beau nodded to other couples who passed by in their Sunday finest.

  “Mr. Spencer,” one woman said with a polite smile.

  “Ms. Harper,” he replied.

  When they reached the parlor, Beau pointed to a black gap in the floor. There wasn’t light shining through, it wasn’t a mark on the floor, it was nothing. Just a black strip.

  “Step over,” he said firmly.

  The black gap appeared at the other end of the room as well. Again, they stepped over.

  They strolled through the two front iron doors that were propped open by two large flower pots. The black gap appeared every so often and she pointed to it. “What is that?”

  He placed a finger over his lips. “I’ll tell you in a moment.” They walked to the side of the wrap-around porch.

  When he was certain that no one else was in sight, he kissed her, lifting her body close to him such that her toes left the ground.

  She held on tight, remembering with a rush of emotion what it was like to be in his arms, remembering the future they had promised one another. The way life was supposed to be felt oddly within her grasp once again.

  He kissed her cheeks. “I could not have lost you one more time.” When he released her, he kept her at enough of a distance to study her. His fingers grazed over her hair, her cheeks, her lips. “Always so beautiful,” he breathed. He brought his mouth within just a whisper of an inch from hers and waited, as if he savored the moment.

  Finally, he leaned into her and kissed her mouth softly. His full lips tasted of love, passion and champagne. His kisses had the same effect on her that they always had. They filled her with happiness, made her feel that dreams really did come true and they sent a flood of heat through her body that curled her toes. There were two thoughts in her head, and they were hooked on repeat: He was alive, and he hadn’t left her.

  A familiar sound. The ocean breeze whipping over the lawn and through the pines, whistling as it picked up speed. With her eyes closed, Peyton could almost believe she was home: Beau’s kisses, the endless ocean nearby, she prepared herself to feel the wind on her skin. Instead, the gray boards beneath her feet shifted. Beau jerked back, grabbed her by the arm. “It’s changing. We have to move.”

  “What’s changing?” she asked.

  “The scenes. The story. This.” He searched the ground.

  The decking slid beneath her feet like a flat escalator.

  He held her hand and guided her to follow the natural movement of the flooring. “Watch out—” He pointed to the black space in the floor, about five inches that spread from left to right, and he held her hand to make sure she stepped over the gap.

  The flooring stopped at the great lawn where a large white tent had been erected. A fairly large crowd milled about. The same people from the ballroom, Peyton thought.

  “I remember this one.” He breathed a sigh that sounded like relief. “This is the wedding reception. We can get around in this one, too.”

  She told him how she had seen him in one tintype and then later, he had moved to another. “Is this how that happens?” she asked.

  “It’s like the house changes its mind, moves on to a different memory and the landscape changes. Then I move with it.” There was a hardness to his eyes, a mix of fear and rage. “We can’t
stay here, we need to go this way.” He pointed to the gathering. “Follow my lead. Play along. Don’t reveal where you’re from or how we actually know one another. I’ll take care of that.”

  When they arrived at the reception, he lifted two champagne flutes from a waiter’s silver tray and handed one to Peyton. He tapped his glass against hers and they both sipped the cold, bubbly wine.

  He looked over his shoulder, nodded toward the manor. “These scenes, the manor’s past, they play on repeat. This is the twelfth time I’ve been to this wedding.”

  “Twelve times?” She felt an irrational sense of guilt, for not knowing that he was trapped or that he needed help.

  He nodded to something behind her. “We can step inside the kitchen in this scene, escape the crowd for a while. Remember, follow my lead.” He phrased his words as a question but his tone gave no such request. It was a statement, almost a command.

  “And the black lines?” she whispered.

  He pointed to a man in a black suit coat and tie standing behind a camera on a tripod. “Bertha Mae has several photographers that take photos of everything you see out here. The black lines delineate the edge of the photo, and they aren’t actually lines at all. They are the gaps between the photos. If you step on them you’ll fall into them, I’ve made that mistake before. If you fall into them, you’ll leave this sequence of photos and end up in a different set of photos altogether. I don’t know how you and I would find each other again if that happened.”

  Peyton ran her hand across her forehead, remembered the boxes of tintypes that were stacked in the ballroom in her time. She imagined herself falling from this tintype and landing in one that was several boxes away from where they were now. Their trip through the manor’s memories, through the tintypes, could be like dancing through a shuffling of cards.

  “Horace and Ruby Lee could be anywhere in the collection,” her voice pitched high with worry.

  “What?”

  She told him how Mrs. Miller accidentally sent Ruby Lee into the manor’s memories, how Jayne Ella accidentally sent Horace. And how Mrs. Miller deliberately sent Beau, and now her, as well.

  “I think you may have been right all those years ago. I may not have had anything to do with Ruby’s disappearance.” She still couldn’t believe what she was saying, couldn’t figure out what she didn’t remember from that night.

  Beau ran a hand along his jaw, sighed deeply.

  She expected him to be angry. He’d tried to tell her the last time they were together that she couldn’t have done such a thing, that she couldn’t have hurt anyone. If she had known that, or been open to that possibility, then maybe they wouldn’t have argued. Maybe Mrs. Miller wouldn’t have been able to send him into this realm. And maybe they wouldn’t have been apart these last nine years.

  “I didn’t think you could have done anything like that,” he said. “And the blood?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  He nodded patiently as if to say they would figure that out another time. She realized that being in this hidden universe of the manor had changed him, humbled him.

  “Mrs. Miller is insane with grief over the loss of her daughter. Unless I get Ruby Lee and Horace back to her, she’s going to start sending other members of my family into this realm. My sister, my nieces, my mother.” She left off the fact that Ira would probably be first on her hit list. Another wave of guilt washed through her, this time because she hadn’t yet told him that she was engaged.

  Beau started shaking his head before she even finished. “We can’t let her do that. This place has nearly broken me. I can’t imagine what it would do to a child.” He told her how he had seen Horace several times over the years, but that they’d often gotten separated. The fear she had seen in his eyes the night before was back. She wanted to take him in her arms. She took his hand.

  “What about Ruby Lee?” She looked at their hands, they had always fit together so well. His thumb stroked over hers. He used to call her his split-apart. He’d said that when God made him, he made her at the same time, as his perfect other half. That he never truly felt at home unless she was in his arms.

  She told him with a grin that he was being possessive. But truth be known, she felt the same way.

  “I haven’t seen her since we were kids. I’m not even sure I would recognize her after all this time,” he said. “Have you seen her in the tintypes?”

  “Mrs. Miller showed me a picture. It’s hard to tell in black and white, but it looks like she still has her red hair. That should help narrow down the options for us.”

  “I have seen a few redheads here over the years. None that I’ve spoken to.”

  “Mrs. Miller said she was usually in the holiday tintypes.”

  “Usually? As in she stays there?”

  Peyton shrugged. “She wasn’t specific. Maybe she’s only out and about in the photographs during the holidays?”

  “I didn’t think you could stay in the scene when the tintypes shifted, but maybe she figured out something I haven’t.”

  “We have to find her. Are there any holidays coming up?”

  “Thanksgiving. We’ll find her,” he said. He kept her hand in his and clasped it even more firmly. Kissed the top of it and held it to his chest. It was as if his feelings for her traveled from his heart through her hand, down her arm and into her soul. It was a visit with what used to be, what they used to have, what she’d thought had long been lost.

  She leaned into the sensation for a moment, enjoying the firmness of his chest. His personality used to be so much stronger than hers—his drive, his dreams, his need to travel. Even his love for her had been overpowering. She had never been a shrinking violet, but his strength defined their relationship in many ways. Even how they would live their lives after they were married.

  It wasn’t that she minded, necessarily. She loved his strength. But it could, at times, suck all the oxygen out of the room. His certainty, his determination, left very little room for her to have her own thoughts.

  “We have some time before this scene changes again. It’s a good idea to eat while you can. Sometimes there isn’t food for a while. It all depends where we end up next. After we eat I’ll explain more.”

  She cursed under her breath. If there was hunger in this world, there could also be pain and suffering without the remedies they were accustomed to, like penicillin and painkillers.

  They walked until they reached the kitchen door at the back of the house. The reception was still in full swing on the great lawn. Beau slipped into the kitchen through the screen door, motioned for Peyton to wait.

  “Hasseltine,” he called to a tall, full-figured African-American woman who stood at the sink. The same woman Peyton had seen the night before. Beau turned on his light-up-the-dark smile and she grinned in return.

  “On the stove, Mister Beau.” She gestured with a nod to the stove where a plate was piled high with chicken, mashed potatoes and other vegetables.

  “Thank you, love.” Beau kissed her on the cheek and she swatted at him with a towel, shaking her head.

  Beau introduced Peyton and requested two forks and a knife. He motioned for Peyton to sit with him at a long wooden table.

  When Hasseltine put the silverware on the table, she gave Peyton a nervous pat on her back.

  Peyton leaned toward Beau. “We can interact with them?”

  “Oh, yes. They’re alive,” he said. “Or at least the memory of them is. Living memories, I call them. And as long as we follow events in a certain order, they’ll remember you. I came to see her earlier this morning and asked her to put this plate of food aside for me.”

  “Hello, Hasseltine.”

  The young girl that Peyton had met last night in the dining room walked into the room slowly, her black patent shoes thudding against the hardwoods as if there wasn’t an ounce of energy left in her. The circles beneath her eyes were darker. The bow in her messy ponytail was crooked, obvious she’d tied it herself.

>   “Honey-child, you’re supposed to be in bed,” Hasseltine scolded.

  “But I want to see everyone. I’m tired of being in bed. I’m bored. And I’m tired of not feeling well.” The little girl sat on a nearby chair. Even with her sallow complexion and downturned mouth she was one of the most beautiful children Peyton had ever seen. Like a walking doll. It was hard not to stare.

  “My name’s Rachel.”

  Peyton’s head tilted back with recognition. With her illness, the little girl didn’t look like she did in the tintypes Peyton had seen. This was Bertha Mae’s daughter, the one who drowned when she was young. “Hello, Rachel,” Peyton said. “Are you feeling okay?”

  “Your mama said you weren’t allowed to attend today’s gathering. This is no place for children.” Hasseltine pressed her lips to the girl’s forehead, then touched her fingers to her own lips. “You need to rest, somethin’s just not right.”

  Bertha Mae walked into the room, her dark hair piled high, ringlets cascading in ideal contrast against her white dress. She paused at the sight of Rachel, her lips tight as if met by a rank smell.

  Peyton flinched.

  “Mama, don’t be mad at me, I just want to be with everyone. I don’t want to miss out.”

  Bertha Mae turned to Peyton, assessed her red dress in an agonizingly long up and down. Her cheeks flushed.

  Hasseltine lowered her arms from the little girl’s shoulders. Waited. Her dread filled the room like black smoke. “This is Miss Peyton, Mr. Beau’s friend.”

  “So thoughtful of you to help us celebrate today, Peyton.”

  “Thank you,” Peyton said. The words barely found their way out of her throat. She rose out of the chair, folded her hands in front of her.

  She had always thought of Bertha Mae as a benevolent woman—caring, compassionate, kind. She had been a heroine of Peyton’s, someone she long wished Jayne Ella could have been. But the soft brown eyes Peyton had seen in the tintypes were darker today. Hard and accusing, like an insect’s.

  The house felt sick, its energy made Peyton cringe and nearly cower. She wanted to open the windows and doors to the manor, let the salty ocean breeze sweep through the house. Cleansing everything in its path, removing the sickness, like a purge.