Mimosa Grove (27 page)

Without further hesitation, and oblivious to Marie’s shouts to come back, she threw the lock into the deepest, darkest part of the old pond, then watched until the water that had parted to let it in was washed back into place with the constant downpour of rain.

Still struggling with the ugliness of what she’d unwittingly brought into her house, she turned. Marie was standing at the edge of the porch, still waving frantically for her to come in, and beside her was the swiftly fading image of the young black woman in the long gray dress.

Laurel stood until the only thing she saw was Marie and the door of Mimosa Grove, standing open behind her, waiting to take Laurel in. She started toward the house, and by the time she got to the steps, she was running.

“You lost your mind. That’s what you did,” Marie said, and grabbed Laurel by the arm and dragged her into the house. “You get yourself upstairs and into some dry clothes. And dry all that hair that’s dripping on my clean floors while you’re at it.” Then she pointed in Laurel’s face, trying to prove her power, when it was evident that it was nothing but worry that caused her tirade. “And don’t you go tellin’ me that you been seein’ ghosts, ’cause I don’t want to hear it. There’s too much of the past still alive in this house, and I’ll be glad for the day when these restless spirits go and put themselves to rest. You hear what I’m sayin’?”

Laurel nodded. “Yes, ma’am, and I’m sorry about the mess. If you’ll give me a couple of minutes to get out of these wet clothes, I’ll mop up.”

Marie frowned and waved her dust cloth toward the stairs.

“You run your own business, missy. I tend to this house. Now, get out of those wet clothes, like I said.”

Laurel didn’t have the guts to argue further. She could still hear Marie muttering to herself as she reached the landing. She was coming out of her clothes all the way to her room, and as she shut the door behind her, she heard the soft sound of laughter. She turned quickly but saw nothing.

“Laugh if you want to,” she muttered as she headed for the bathroom. “I’ll bet you wouldn’t have argued with her, either.”

J
ustin called after supper. Laurel was just getting out of the shower when the phone rang. She dropped her towel and hurried to answer, and when she heard his voice, all the tension of the day disappeared.

“Justin, sweetheart, you sound exhausted. Is everything okay?”

“The levee is holding. It’s about all we can say.”

“I think it will quit raining tonight.”

Justin had been pulling off his wet boots when he heard what she said. He stopped immediately, sat down with a thump and traded the phone to his other ear.

“Did you see this, baby?”

“Sort of,” she said, and then laughed. “It’s what the weatherman is forecasting.”

Her self-deprecating humor surprised him. It was the first time he’d heard her make a joke about herself, and he liked that. He chuckled, then bent down and kicked off his other boot, wiggling his weary feet in relief.

“You’re a comedy queen, aren’t you,
chère?
”

Laurel laughed again. “I’m sorry. I just couldn’t resist.”

Justin closed his eyes and leaned back.

“What are you wearing?” he asked.

“Nothing.”

He groaned. “God. I didn’t need to know that,” he said. “You could have lied.”

“Then you shouldn’t have asked.”

“I miss you, baby.”

Laurel hugged herself, then rolled over onto her bed and curled into a ball.

“I miss you, too,” she said softly. “How’s Tommy?”

“He took my truck and drove over to my house to check on Cheryl Ann and Rachelle. He’ll be back after a while, I suppose.”

“Have the others gone home, too?”

Justin shoved a hand through his wet hair and then massaged the muscles at the back of his neck.

“Yes. We ran out of sacks. After that, Tommy thanked everyone for coming and told them to go home and get some sleep.”

“Oh, no!” Laurel said, and quickly sat back up. “Is there anything I can do? I can make some calls. See if there are any available in the next town and go—”

“No. We tried. And don’t you set foot out of that house. The only thing that gives me peace of mind right now is knowing that Mimosa Grove does not flood.”

“All right, but if—”

“No buts. Just promise.”

She smiled to herself. “I promise.”

“Have you heard from your daddy?”

“Yes. He’s home. Estelle is nursing him and, I think, driving him crazy. He says when the doctor releases him, he’s still going to Fiji or Belize, or wherever it was he was headed before all hell broke loose. And those are his words, not mine.”

Justin chuckled. “I like him, you know.”

Laurel thought back to the short time they’d all spent together, and how easily Justin and Robert had bonded.

“He asked me my intentions,” Justin said.

Laurel gasped. “He didn’t!”

“Yeah, actually, he did,” Justin said. “I told him they were fairly honorable, but that I’d never really had a chance of getting away.”

“You didn’t!”

He laughed. “No, I didn’t. I kept our dream-time rendezvous to myself. Besides, who’d believe me?”

“I would,” she said softly.

“Yeah, but you’re special that way,” Justin said.

Laurel smiled, then rolled over onto her belly.

“Please be careful,” she said. “I’ve waited so long for someone like you that I couldn’t bear to lose you.”

She almost said the word “again” and wondered where that had come from.

“You’re not going to lose me,” Justin said.

Then he frowned. He’d almost added the word “again” and wondered why.

“Still reading that diary?” he asked.

She frowned. “Yes. There’s something I want to tell you when I see you, but it’s nothing that can’t wait.”

“Okay. Sleep tight, my love. I wish I was there to hold you.”

“No more than I do,” Laurel said. “Stay safe. I love you.”

“Love you, too,” he said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“I’ll be waiting.”

The click in her ear was distinct, and, she thought, the loneliest sound.

A few minutes later, she had dried her hair, slipped on a fresh nightgown and was back at the diary. With only three pages left to go, she knew she couldn’t sleep tonight without knowing how Chantelle had ended her solitary conversation.

Laurel laid down the diary with a frown. This confirmed the legend that had come with the place, that the first woman of Mimosa Grove had run away from her man. Yet it was a contradiction, too, because, according to that same legend, she had left with another man, leaving her children behind. They lived, grew up, married, bore children and, according to Marie, were buried in the cemetery outside Bayou Jean. Yet according to the diary, Chantelle had planned to take them with her.

Still frowning, she pulled back the covers and turned out the lights. Outside, the occasional shaft of lightning still lit up the sky, and the belch and grumble of thunder still rattled the windowpanes. She went to the window and pushed the curtains aside, watching the darkness and waiting for the next bolt of lightning to illuminate what she already saw in her mind’s eye.

Even without opening the window, she could hear the rush and rumble in the distance that was the river in flood. She thought about the grove, and of the big cat that hadn’t been seen since Trigger DeLane’s death.

Manville and two of his boys had come back the next day after the police and the coroners had allowed them on the property and tracked the cat until they’d lost its trail. For two nights afterward, they’d combed the grove, but with no results.

On the third day, a panther had been sighted about five miles downriver. The farmer on whose land it was hunting had killed it outright with a blast from both barrels of his shotgun. People said it was the same one that had killed the man at Mimosa Grove. Laurel liked to think it was so. It was part of that night. Part of a time she didn’t want to relive. And if the panther, too, was dead, then the ordeal would be over.

As she stood, lost in thought and wondering if Justin was as restless as she, a bolt of lightning suddenly snaked out of the sky, striking so close to the house that she was momentarily blinded. She staggered backward, then stumbled over a chair and slid down to the floor. In a panic that something on the property had been hit, she scrambled back to her feet and ran to the window, worried about what had been struck.

But the darkness was blinding and the rain still fell, and since nothing was on fire, whatever it was would have to wait until morning. She went to bed with a prayer of thanksgiving that it had missed the house.

Then she started to dream.

“You bitch! You ungrateful, foreign bitch! I will not be humiliated like this. You will not leave me, nor will you take my children.”

“They’re my children, too!” Chantelle cried, and then fell backward against the fireplace when he struck her with his fist.

As blood poured into the inside of her mouth, Chantelle knew she’d made a horrible mistake by telling him of her plan. She should have waited for him to take one of his trips, then slipped away with the children on her own. Now it was too late. Before she could get up, he fell upon her and began beating her in earnest.

Chantelle began screaming, begging for help and, at the same time, praying her children would not witness her debasement.

“Stop! Stop! For the love of God, you are killing me!” she cried.

“It is what you deserve!” he shouted. “If you will not be my wife, then no other man shall know you, either!”

He continued to pummel her with his fists until she could barely see from one eye. Her nose was surely broken, because she could no longer draw air through one nostril. And just when she thought it was over, he was gone—lifted from her body and flung through the air like a rag doll.

She moaned. Someone was pulling her up, begging her to run. Begging her not to look back. But she did.

It was Joshua.

He stood between her and her husband like a dark and avenging angel. His hands were still curled into the fists that had knocked her husband from her body. The breadth of his shoulders and the long, strong length of his legs had proved too much for her husband to fight.

“Please, Missus,” he begged. “If you don’t run, we both dead.”

Then she did something outrageous. Something she would never have imagined herself capable of doing. She thought of the beating he had suffered, then grabbed him by the hand and begged him to go with her.

“Come with me,” she said. “He’ll kill you if you don’t.”

Joshua looked down at their hands, at the fingers that were entwined, and was so shocked that she’d touched him in this way that he couldn’t speak. She kept talking and talking, but he was still staring at the contrast of light and dark. Then he shuddered and
made himself look up—right into her pale blue eyes and a face that was so battered, and knew he had to tell her no.

“No, Missus…no. I can’t leave my woman…and what about my baby girl?”

“I’ll find a way,” she said. “All I need is to get word to my father. He’ll buy you away. He’ll pay for you all. Then you’ll be free, just like me.”

Joshua looked down once again at her hand, absently thinking how tiny it looked against the size of his own. And he knew that in another time, and in different lives, he would have loved this woman who’d dared to live true to herself.

He shuddered once, then moved his hand away.

“You run now.”

Then Chantelle’s face crumpled.

“My babies. I can’t leave my babies behind with this man.”

Joshua’s wife stepped out from behind a curtain. She’d been an unwilling witness to it all, even the shocking interchange between her husband and the master’s wife. As she looked down upon her unconscious master, she started to cry.

“Oh, Joshua…Joshua…what you gone and done to the massuh? He won’t just whip you again. He’ll kill you fo’ shore.”

And in that moment, LeDeux moaned.

Joshua grabbed Chantelle and turned her toward the door.

“You run, Missus. It’s still dark. He can’t see you. Run toward the river. I got a boat hid out down there, and I’ll take you to someplace safe.” Then he turned to his wife, and as he did, she began to cry. “Listen to me, woman, and you listen good. You been the best
woman a man could have. We got us a pretty baby girl that we love, just like Missus here loves her babies. But we got us some trouble, too. If I don’t get her out, he gonna kill her for shore. Then he gonna kill us both for knowin’ she dead. You understand?”

Her dark eyes widened with fear as she nodded her head.

“You get back to the cabin. You lay down with our baby and you sleep like you never slept before. And when he wakes you up and asks where I gone…you start wailin’ and cryin’ like your heart done broke. You carry on so loud and long that he’ll know for shore you don’t know nothin’ about what’s been done.”

“But my babies,” Chantelle moaned. “I’d rather die than leave my babies.”

Joshua’s woman stared as if she’d seen a ghost. Suddenly it dawned on her that this woman was just like her, that she would do anything to protect her children.

“Missus…you get my Joshua to safety, and I swear on my life that me and mine will look after your children and their children and their children after, for as long as we all lives.”

Chantelle hesitated again, until she saw her husband beginning to stir. And at that moment, her decision was made.

She looked up at Joshua, unaware that all her hopes and her trust were there on her face for him to see.

“You’ll be waiting for me?”

“Yes, Missus, iffen I have to, I wait forever until you come.”

Laurel woke up. Sunlight was shining through her bedroom windows. She rolled over on her back, then sat up. But she didn’t move, and at that moment, wouldn’t have been able to speak.

She already knew what had happened to Chantelle when she’d made a run for the river. Someone had caught her. Someone had hit her in the middle of her back with something that had dealt her a deadly blow, and if she had to offer a guess, she would say it had been the man to whom she’d been wed.

Then she thought of Joshua’s wife, and suddenly she understood the depth of her promise. She didn’t have to ask to know that Marie LeFleur was a descendant of that woman, just as Laurel was a descendant of Chantelle. History had kept repeating itself, looping from generation to generation upon the promises that three people had made to one another.