Gilda Joyce: The Bones of the Holy (10 page)

“Oh, yes. Could have made someone a nice husband. Oh, I mean to say . . .” Evelyn stumbled, realizing her faux pas. “I'm sure he'll make a wonderful husband for
your mother
. I just meant that when he was younger he was even
better l
ooking. Over the years he filled out a bit.”

“Did he have the mustache back then?” Gilda knew it was a silly question, but she couldn't resist. She had to know.

“I believe so. Yes, he always had the mustache.”

“These days he's wearing it curled with mustache wax,” Mary Louise added, with a smirk.

“Oh is he now?” Evelyn's facial expression made it clear that she thought this sounded like a terrible idea.

“I'd love to know more about
Charlotte
.” Gilda felt as if she wanted to pinch herself to make sure she was awake. She couldn't believe her luck at meeting Evelyn Castle—a woman who not only owned a ghost-tour company, but who knew some extremely juicy information about Eugene Pook's background.

“Well, I admit I never knew Charlotte very well when she still lived here, but her family—the Furbos—they're one of the old Minorcan families that came over in the seventeen hundreds. Anyway, the Furbos are big landowners, farmers outside the Old City. From what I heard, they were so excited about the wedding they had planned for their daughter, which was supposed to be one of the big events of the year. Oh, they were just devastated when Charlotte called it off. I don't think they ever did forgive her. At least, that's what I heard. I've certainly never seen Charlotte around town visiting her folks since then.”

“Do you know
why
Charlotte called off the wedding at the last minute?” Gilda asked. “I mean, aside from Eugene's mustache wax.”

Evelyn chuckled. “Again, I'm not one to gossip, but from what I heard, Charlotte happened to meet a man who was on leave from the military. He was just about to be stationed overseas—somewhere in Europe. Well, she apparently just decided to take off with him. Honestly, it didn't surprise me so much. Charlotte was young to be getting married to a man Eugene's age. A bit flighty, too, from what I hear. I remember she used to help Eugene in the antiques shop when they were engaged, and she would create the strangest displays.”

“Strange how?”

“Oh, she would mix things up. Once, she put beautiful old dolls in an antique coffin just to get people's attention. I guess it was artistic. But strange.”

Charlotte sounds very interesting,
Gilda thought.

“Anyway,” Evelyn continued, “after the wedding plans fell through, I'd sometimes stop into Charlotte's Attic and Eugene would come up to me and show me a letter or two that Charlotte had written to him from Europe. It was sad how he'd just carry those letters around in his pocket and look at them from time to time.

“ ‘You mean to tell me that Charlotte still writes to you, Eugene?' I'd ask him. ‘Sure, she does,' he'd say. And then he'd read me her letter about how she was traveling through this country or that country, and how she still thinks of him and misses him—even though she couldn't be bothered to show up for their wedding. Oh, it was enough to turn my stomach.

“I told him, ‘Eugene, if I were you, I'd take that letter and burn it after what Charlotte did to you.'

“ ‘ You don't understand, Evelyn,' Eugene would say. ‘Charlotte is my soul mate.' There was just no changing his mind.” Evelyn sipped her lemonade and sighed heavily.

“Well, Gilda's mother must be one very special lady if she can convince Eugene to finally get married and forget about that Charlotte once and for all!” Mary Louise declared.

“I guess so.” Gilda wasn't sure what to think. For one thing, she wasn't sure whether she should consider the story about Eugene's first “true love” reassuring or disturbing.

“I'd like to meet your mother sometime,” said Evelyn. “Where are they having their wedding ceremony?”

“It's going to be down by the waterfront at the old mission,” said Gilda. “November first—the morning after Halloween. You should all come!”

Gilda immediately realized she had far overstepped her very restricted responsibilities as daughter of the bride.
Eugene might not want all of them to be there,
she thought. But it was too late. Mary Louise and Evelyn's curiosity had gotten the best of them, and they were both intrigued enough to accept a casual invitation from the bride's daughter. Besides, in St. Augustine, the weddings were often big and sprawling, and the bride simply had to be willing to make room for a few more guests up until the very last minute.

“Oh, we would love to attend!” said Evelyn, “I mean, if it's okay with your mother, of course. Now, we'd best be walking toward the ghost tour; it's getting late.”

“Do we
have
to do the ghost tour?” Darla moaned. “Can't we just go for ice cream now?”

“Quit whining, Darla,” Mary Louise snapped. “Debbie is expecting us over there. Besides, you know you'll have fun once we get there.”

Darla slumped down in her chair.

As they left the restaurant and headed toward the ghost tour, Gilda couldn't shake an odd combination of relief and revulsion as she mulled over the story of Eugene's failed relationship with Charlotte.
I suppose I should be happy to learn that he isn't a criminal or a complete womanizer,
Gilda thought. If anything, it sounded as if Eugene was loyal to a fault—at least when it came to his former relationship with Charlotte.
But what kind of person pines for years over someone who left him at the altar?
Gilda wondered.
And what is it about Mom that made him finally get over Charlotte?

Was Eugene simply a hopeless romantic, or was there something terribly wrong with her stepfather-to-be?

M
ost people can't perceive ghosts with the naked eye,” said Debbie. She stood at the Old City gates surrounded by a group of parents and kids who had gathered for her ghost tour. Gilda noticed that many of the kids carried flashlights and cameras; Debbie held nothing except her old-fashioned lantern. “Now, if you take pictures with your camera, you might get luckier,” Debbie explained. “Some of the ghosts manifest as orbs. They're like balls of energy that look like round lights floating in the air. And if you're
really
lucky, you might see an actual face or an image of a person.”

“This is where I'll leave you, ladies,” Evelyn whispered to Gilda, Darla, and Mary Louise as they joined the tour group. “You'll be in good hands with Debbie. She knows the ghosts of this city even better than I do.”

“Now, the first story I want to tell you takes place right here at the old entrance to the historic part of St. Augustine,” Debbie continued. “A long time ago, there was a young girl who loved to stand right here and greet all the travelers who entered the city. Each day she smiled and waved to every person who passed through these gates. But then tragedy struck, and the poor girl died from yellow fever.

“Sometimes, if a person dies too young—before he or she is ready to pass on—their spirit lingers, trying to hang on to the things they did during life. Well, this young girl so missed being able to stand at the city gates watching all the travelers in their horse-drawn carriages that she just wasn't able to say good-bye.

“To this day, a lone traveler who finds himself walking home late at night after a party in town or at the beach might glance up at the city gates and be shocked to see a girl standing there, just looking at him and smiling. It's a troubling thing to see because this girl is wearing nineteenth-century clothes; she's clearly in the wrong time. She also looks deathly ill from the yellow fever that killed her. But there she is, standing in front of the gates to the Old City—just smiling and waving.”

A gust of warm wind swept through the group, and Gilda felt a slight tickle in her ear. She glanced at Darla and was annoyed to see her furiously texting a message to one of her friends.
What is she writing?
Gilda wondered. She inched closer to Darla, until she was close enough to peek over Darla's shoulder and sneak a glimpse of her cell-phone screen. Gilda was surprised and a little disturbed by the content of Darla's message—a text she appeared to be typing to nobody but herself:

 

There are no ghosts there are no ghosts there are no ghosts. . . .

 

Gilda suddenly understood that Darla was scared out of her wits.
But why?
After all, Darla used to communicate with a ghost-boy every day—a spirit she had described as a “friend.” Why would Darla be so afraid of a routine ghost tour through the city when she had previously experienced a haunting in her own home without feeling afraid?

“Hey! Somebody—” Darla suddenly glanced behind and then quickly moved away from the city gate. “Never mind.”

“What's wrong, Darla?” Gilda asked.

“Never mind,” said Darla.

“You saw something,” Gilda pressed.

“I don't want to talk about it,” Darla muttered.

“Follow me, everyone,” said Debbie. “Next stop is the Huguenot Cemetery, where many of the victims of yellow fever were buried. In fact,” she added, “some of them were buried
alive
.”

“Darla!” Gilda whispered, grabbing Darla's arm, “what are you so afraid of?” By now both girls had stopped on the sidewalk, facing each other as the other kids and parents walked past them.

“I
saw
her, okay?” Darla whispered. “I saw the ghost-girl by the gate. In fact, she pulled my hair.”

Gilda felt simultaneously amazed and exasperated. “Well, if you
saw
her, why didn't you
say
anything, Darla?”

“Look,” said Darla, nervously glancing toward her mother, who was now standing across the street waiting for the two girls to catch up, “can't we just forget about this?”

“No, we can't,” said Gilda. “Darla, why aren't you excited? This means you can see ghosts again!”

“It's not exciting.” Darla looked as if she were fighting tears. “I see them everywhere, and I really wish they'd leave me alone.”

I
t's my mama who wants me to see ghosts,” said Darla. She and Gilda walked together as Debbie led them across a drawbridge, over an old moat, and into the dark chambers and passageways of the old Spanish fort where soldiers once lived and worked. “Mama used to talk about turning our house into a bed-and-breakfast ; in fact, I think she first got the idea after I started seeing that ghost-boy Tom around our place. She had noticed that ghosts seem to be good for business around here. Mama planned how we'd have séances for the guests every evening after supper—the idea being that I would entertain everyone. And of course, all the ghost-hunter television shows would come to our place to interview me. For her, the whole thing was just really fun and exciting.

“I didn't mind at first because I wasn't paying much attention to Mama's plans. I talked about my ghost-friend Tom all the time because to me, he was almost like a member of the family—someone who just happened to live in the house. I knew he wasn't alive, but he didn't scare me. It's hard to explain, but it was kind of like being friends with someone who just happened to live a long time ago. He wore funny clothes—kind of like knickers. And he said he liked being near me because I was ‘warm.' He felt cold a lot of the time—a different kind of cold than you and I would feel outside in the winter, I guess. He said it was hard to explain, but he felt better when he was near me.

“He usually just wanted to play, and he said he missed having his real body because all he could do mostly was watch me. Once he told me about the accident that killed him, and how mad he was about it. I didn't know what to say. ‘I guess I'd be mad about it, too, if I were you,' I told him.

“ ‘ But I'm not as bad off as some of the other spirits in this city,' Tom said. I remember he kind of warned me that there are places in some of the old houses that are kind of like portals or gateways—places where spirits can travel from what he called ‘a bad place' into the world.

“Anyway, it was all fine until the television cameras showed up. Tom didn't like that. ‘Tell them to go away,' he kept saying. ‘Tell them to leave us alone.'

“ ‘ Why do you want them to leave?' I asked him.

“ ‘ Because they want to see me, but they don't really
care
that I'm here,' he said. ‘They don't really care that I got killed and that I actually
died
here. They just want me to do something that they can put inside that box.'

“He meant television. He called it ‘that box.'

“ ‘ But I can't tell them to leave,' I explained. ‘My mom invited them to be here.'

“ ‘ Then pretend you can't see me,' he said.

“ ‘ But I
can
see you, Tom,' I said.

“ ‘Just pretend that you can't.
Please
.'

“So that's what I did. They kept asking me, ‘Do you see anything now? Do you hear anything yet?' And I kept saying, ‘No—there's nothing.' Even though I could see Tom sitting there, right next to the cameras.

“Mama was so disappointed. They left without anything to use for the ghost-hunting show. And as you can imagine, Mama really didn't want to hear me talking about Tom after that, since I supposedly couldn't see him when the cameras were rolling. And I guess I was kind of sick of the whole thing, too. I felt so guilty about disappointing Mama, and Tom's games were beginning to seem immature. So I just started ignoring Tom—pretending that I really couldn't see him.”