American Heroes Series - 03 - Purgatory (45 page)

Elliot’s eyes nearly popped from
her skull. “That’s what those crypts say!”

He nodded, having a hard time
comprehending everything.  He stared at the writing, reading it over and over,
word for word.

 “So the matter of greed was
decided because Paul-Michel, greedy for everyone’s inheritance, killed his
siblings and tried to take it for himself,” he looked up at Elliot. “But Sophie
sought vengeance for her children that he killed and killed him herself.  She
knew she would go to hell for it, but she did it anyway.”

Elliot thought hard on the
passage, on the meanings, and gradually shook her head.

“No, I don’t think that’s what it
means at all,” she said earnestly. “I don’t think she meant condemning them all
to hell, literally. I think she just meant in the house itself.  Nash, the
house itself is a symbol of greed and if what she alludes to is true, there’s
pirate treasure buried in the very walls.
That’s
your greed.  But that
wouldn’t have accounted for her saying that their greed is buried with them for
eternity. She’s not poetic enough to use metaphors like that.  What if… what if
she means it
literally
?”

He cocked his head. “You mean…
you mean that she buried the wealth, what Paul-Michel wanted so badly, with her
children?”

“Yes,” she was electrified at the
thought, hopping off the bed. “What if the treasure rumored to be buried at
Purgatory isn’t only within the walls, but in the crypts themselves?”

Nash was following her train of
thought. “It makes a hell of a lot of sense,” he agreed. “But two things don’t
add up.”

“What?”

He pointed a finger at her.
“Namely, what happened to Sophie? She killed her eldest son, buried all of her
kids with their inheritance so no one else would be cursed by such greed, and
then she presumably killed herself.  Where’s her body?”

Elliot shook her head. “I don’t
know,” she thought hard, trying to get up a head of steam in the logic train.
“If I’m Sophie MacGregor and all my kids are dead, I’m going to want to be with
them. I’m not going to be far from them at all.”

“Unless,” Nash held up a finger,
“your body is found by people who think you killed all of your kids before
committing suicide, they’re going to either toss you in the bayou or bury you
in unconsecrated ground. “

Elliot agreed with him. “So she’s
either alligator food or she’s buried on unholy ground. Is there any unholy
ground around here?”

Nash shook his head.  “I’ve never
heard of any, other than…. Oh, my God….”

Elliot couldn’t stand it. “What?”

Nash tried to be rational.
“Because of the nasty dealings and the dark character of the family, The
Bottoms used to be considered cursed ground. It still is to some of the old
people around here.  It’s quite possible that even back then, with the bad
blood between the Loreaus and the Aurys, that people associated with Purgatory
considered The Bottoms cursed ground.”

Elliot’s jaw went agape. “So
maybe she was buried there?”

Nash shook his head and climbed
out of bed. “Maybe,” he said. “It’s pure conjecture, but it’s possible.  If she
was, I’m sure it was unmarked and long lost by now.”

Elliot thought on that. The
revelations from the journal were staggering and she was still trying to absorb
it all. “You said that there were two things that didn’t add up. What’s the
second?”

He was still thinking on Sophie
MacGregor and The Bottoms but shifted gears. “The second question is who wrote
the passage from the end of her journal on the kids’ crypts and then sealed the
journal up. Who in the hell would do that?”

Elliot shook her head. “I don’t
know,” she replied. “But I think we need to go downstairs and visit those
crypts.”

Nash was already leading the way.

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

It was well after midnight as
Nash and Elliot made their way down into the crypt.  Even though Nash had
flipped on the string of lights that Beau had installed, the crypt was still a
dark and eerie place.  Elliot held onto Nash tightly as they made their way
down the narrow secret stairs.

A sump pump had been installed to
drain the water away from the floor of the crypt and they stepped on dark
Louisiana dirt as they came off the stairs instead of two inches of standing
water.  It still smelled swampy and moldy, however, and Elliot sneezed twice.

Dr. Whitney and Dr. Clarke had
spent two months studying the four individual coffins, gently clearing away the
centuries of mold and dirt, bringing to light the fact that all four crypts
were carved from white-veined marble. Dr. Whitney consulted with experts that
concluded the marble was Italian, based on the quality and vein characteristics,
leading him to the conclusion that the crypts must have been shipped by
Louis-Michel’s privateer fleet. Only someone of immense wealth and means could
have brought them to America. 

“Sweetie,” Elliot ventured,
clinging to Nash’s shirt as he made his way over to Paul-Michel’s coffin.
“Didn’t Dr. Whitney say that these marble coffins couldn’t have been the
vessels that the children were originally buried in?”

Nash reached the cleaned and
nearly pristine white marble crypt.  “That’s what he said,” he replied. “He
said that they must have been buried in wooden coffins which are probably set
within these marble ones.”

Elliot stepped out from behind
him and was looking at Paul-Michel’s crypt.  She ran her fingers over the
French lettering. “This reminds me of what we were talking about upstairs.”

“What in particular?”

She cocked her head thoughtfully,
looking at the words. “When these kids were all killed, we’ve got to assume it
was quickly, like, maybe in a matter of just a few days.”

He looked at her. “And?”

She met his gaze. “And, they had
to bury them right away, which means they had to put them in whatever they had
– a wood casket.”

He crossed his arms. “Go on.”

She pointed at the marble. “Dr.
Whitney said that this was Italian marble, which means it had to be cut and
shipped from Italy. Back in the early nineteenth century, that kind of trip
would have taken months, if not years, by the time it reached here.  These
marble crypts weren’t put here until a year or more after the kids, and after
Sophie, were dead.”

“What’s your point?”

She jabbed a finger at the
writing on the crypt. “So who put the passage from Sophie’s journal on these
crypts? It had to be the same person who took the love and care to have these
crypts made. Maybe someone who came home to find his mistress and children
dead, and the only record of it being a disjointed journal.”

Nash lifted an eyebrow. “It makes
sense,” he agreed, looking at the marble. “Someone put a lot of money and
effort into these crypts, and the only person who had those means was
Louis-Michel.”

“He came home, or maybe he was
called home, to find his entire family dead.”

Nash could see the pieces of the
puzzle fitting together.  He put his arm around Elliot’s shoulder as they gazed
at Paul-Michel’s crypt. There was a distinct sense of sadness, of regret,
thinking of the battling children and of his grandfather many times over who
had suffered such a great loss.

“If all of that’s true, and I
have no reason to think otherwise, then Louis-Michel allowed all of that treasure
to be buried with his kids,” he said quietly. “Think about it – if what Sophie
wrote was true, then she buried the reason for their greed with them.  Then
Louis-Michel comes home, finds everybody dead, commissions crypts for his
children, waits for those crypts to come all the way from Italy, and then
reburies his kids with the treasure… I think that says a lot about the man’s
mental state.  He was willing to let all of that wealth be buried with his
children and not take it all back for himself.”

“Because it was blood money,”
Elliot said softly. “It had the blood of his children on it. Why on earth would
he want it back? As superstitious as people were back then, I’m sure he thought
it was cursed and it was better off buried.”

He kissed her forehead. “That
makes the most sense of almost anything I’ve heard today.”

They just stood there, staring at
the crypt. “So,” Elliot said softly. “Are we going to open it?”

“Do you want to?”

Elliot thought on that a moment.
“I think if we do and if there’s treasure there, then we know that everything
Sophie said was true. It exonerates her and I think that’s important. She
doesn’t deserve to be remembered as a woman who killed all of her kids if
that’s not what really happened.”

Nash paused a moment longer
before letting her go and heading back up the steps. She could hear him opening
kitchen drawers upstairs, banging around. Strangely, Elliot wasn’t creeped out
being alone in the crypt. She could only feel an overwhelming sense of sadness
as she turned to her right to see Felicity’s sad-looking crypt. She went over
to it and put her hand on it.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “I
read what happened. It sounds like you tried to fight back but ended up losing
the battle.  At least you tried and that’s very brave.”

“Ellie!”

She jumped at the sound of her
name, running to the hidden stairs to see Nash at the top, motioning furiously
to her.

“Quick,” he hissed. “Come here.”

Elliot flew up the stairs and
Nash put a finger to his lips, indicating silence, as he took her hand and
pulled her into the dark ballroom. Quickly and quietly, he pulled her over to
one of the floor to ceiling windows that faced the north side of the yard,
where the big trench was located that ran from the house to the stables. 

It was dark and quiet outside, a
massive full moon hanging in the sky, bathing the landscape in a brilliant
silver glow. Everything was colored in gray as a peppering of fireflies swarmed
over the yard and through the trees. Spanish moss made for a dark and creepy
contrast to the silver-lit ground. Elliot turned to look at Nash curiously, but
he just shook his head and pointed outside.

“Just watch,” he whispered.
“Let’s see if it happens again.”

Elliot had no idea what he was
talking about but she dutifully waited for something to happen. As she stood
there and gazed into the moonlight over the bayou, she leaned back against Nash
and he wrapped his arms around her. Her mind began to wander to green jello and
whipped cream, and she began to wonder if she was strong enough to eat some cereal. 
Milk sounded really good right now. So did ice cream. As she dreamed of dairy
products, it took her a moment to notice that something was happening outside.

At first, she thought it was
moonlight streaming in through the tree branches but soon enough she began to
realize that the moonbeam was moving. She must have gasped because she felt
Nash’s arms tighten around her as they both watched a silvery, flowing figure
float from an area back towards the old stables in the direction of the house. 

Elliot could see the figure plainly,
the details of a vintage flowing dress, long silver hair and a face that was
fairly indistinct. She watched it move towards the house, ripple though the
shadows of the trees, and then disappear entirely about the time it reached the
trench. Almost as quickly as it had appeared, it had vanished.

Mouth hanging open, she began to
point to the yard. “Oh, my God!” she gasped. “It… it looked like a woman!”

Nash nodded. “Remember I told you
I had seen the ghost of Sophie as a child?” he said softly. “That was her. I
was in the kitchen looking for something to pry open the top of the crypt when
I happened to look into the ballroom and saw that through the window.  I
remember as a kid when I would see her, she’d do it three or four times a
night, the same path, just repeating her steps, so I knew she’d do it again.
She’ll probably do it a couple of more times before the night is out.”

Elliot put a hand over her gaping
mouth, shocked as she turned her gaze out to the yard again.

“That was crazy,” she breathed,
turning to glance over her shoulder at the kitchen door but instead, her gaze
fell on the door from the central hall into the ballroom. She grabbed Nash in a
panic. “Nash, look! In the doorway!”

He spun around, seeing a small
mist undulating in the ballroom doorway. Shocked, he could clearly make out two
little arms and a little leg, with jacket sleeves and short pants. He thought
he could see lace or some kind of frilly material on the end of the jacket
sleeve. It was the weirdest thing he had ever seen.  But as he and Elliot
continued to gaze at it, the misty dissipated into thin air. It just
vanished.  

Elliot just stood there, clinging
to Nash. He could feel her trembling. In truth, he wasn’t exactly sure how to
feel at the moment. They were being bombarded from all sides by otherworldly
visitors and if he allowed himself to feel scared, he could very well have
been. With Elliot so shaken, however, he labored to keep a level head.

“It looked like a kid,” Elliot
finally breathed, turning to look up at Nash. “Didn’t it? Didn’t it look like a
child? I could see little hands and, like, a frilly little jacket. Did you see
it?”