My Reaper's Daughter (11 page)

that have been brought back to life by some powerful magic.” He locked eyes with

Phelan. “An evil version of a Reaper is my guess.”

“Reapers don’t eat human flesh, Tony,” Phelan drawled.

“No, but according to Tolliver, zombays do.”

Phelan heard the faint breath of derision from the tall, slender woman of color.

“You disagree, milady?” he asked.

Leilani’s lips were pursed as she set the tray down on a table in front of the settee.

“Zombies are nothing more than old wives’ tales, milord,” she said as she poured the

Reaper a cup of coffee.

“Then you know what they are,” the Reaper countered.

Leilani straightened then handed him the cup. She nodded but seemed hesitant to

continue. When Phelan gently prodded her, she folded her hands at her waist and

looked down at the floor.

“Zombies were servants of a brutal master who gave them very powerful drugs to

control them, drugs that took away their freewill,” she said. “Drugs that made them

work without complaining.”

“What kind of drugs?” Phelan asked.

“I wouldn’t know, milord,” Leilani lied. “It is nothing more than a myth, a story

told to frighten children into working harder.” She bobbed a curtsy then asked if the

two men needed anything else.

“No, that will be all, Leilani,” Anthony said.

Phelan watched her leave before taking a sip of his coffee. “She knows more than

she’s telling,” he observed.

“All the dark ones do,” Anthony told him. He lowered his voice. “They practice

their own religions, you know.”

Phelan frowned. “I know and
Mo Regina
doesn’t like it but says there’s nothing She

can do about it as long as it does no harm.”

“Aye, but what if it does?” Anthony countered, searching the Reaper’s eyes.

“All right, Tony. Tell me what’s troubling you.”

Anthony hesitated then took a deep breath. “Look here, Phelan. There have been

some strange things that have happened in the last few months that haven’t been easily

explained,” he said.

“Such as?”

“Such as animals found with their throats cut, blood drained. Mostly black goats

but there have been a few black cats and white cockerels as well. Some servants have

come up missing for a few days only to return looking dazed and unable to remember

52

My Reaper’s Daughter

where they’d been or what they’d been doing. A couple of graves have been desecrated

and a body stolen from the local mortuary. Some of my fellow businessmen have been

suffering streaks of really bad luck and there have been an unusual amount of cows

losing their calves, horses losing their colts.”

Phelan’s eyes narrowed. “I thought you said there wasn’t anything going on that I

needed to know about?”

“Well, it hasn’t been anything I felt was worthy of Reaper attention,” Anthony

answered. “Constable Locke is looking into it.”

“Oh well, with Locke on the job, I can rest easy at night!” Phelan scoffed, making it

clear he had little regard for or faith in the local lawman. “Did that stolen body have

bite marks on it?”

“It hasn’t been found yet,” Anthony replied then held up a hand. “And before you

ask, no. No one’s come up with any nibbles taken out of them either.”

“So why mention the flesh-eating shit?” Phelan inquired.

Anthony grinned. “Got your attention, didn’t it?” At the Reaper’s lowered look, the

landowner laughed. “Tolliver says one of his men swears he saw a zombay munching

away on a hapless traveler a few nights ago. Said he frightened the creature off then ran

back to get help. Fred said he and his men went out looking for said hapless traveler but

found nothing at the place the servant swears he saw the ghoul feeding. No remains, no

blood, no bones. He chalked it up to the servant having had a bit too much rum and cut

back on his rationing.”

“Your housekeeper called the thing a zombie,” Phelan reminded his friend.

Anthony waved a dismissive hand. “Whatever it is, it doesn’t sound like something

we need around here.”

“I’ll contact Lord Dunham and see what he knows about such creatures. Beings of

the night are his specialty,” Phelan said. He stretched his long legs out in front of him

and crossed his booted ankles, changing the subject. “So what’s new with your

operation?”

“Still providing the Citadel with cotton and hemp,” Anthony replied. “Found a

helper for Miss Laverne over at the kindergarten my wife set up for the plantation’s

children.”

“As I recall, Miss Laverne is getting on in years,” Phelan observed.

“In her late sixties. I’m hoping she can teach Mystery what she needs to…”

“Mystery?” Phelan asked.

“Only sister of the Dupree boys,” Anthony informed the Reaper. “Just moved back

to the area after becoming widowed.” He leaned back. “A very pretty, gentle young

woman. She should do very well as a teacher.”

“Strange name,” Phelan said.

“Well, here’s how she got it…”

53

Charlotte Boyett-Compo

* * * * *

Leilani’s blood was pounding in her ears as she stood eavesdropping outside the

door. Any mention of her hated enemy always made her want to kill something. It

didn’t help that the Reaper seemed intrigued by what Simmons was telling him about

the newcomer. With her jaw clamped tightly shut, she spun around on her heel and

marched to the back of the house.

“She will regret the day she came back to Sagewood,” Leilani mumbled. “I will

make her sorry she ever took Odell’s seed and corrupted it!”

Thoughts of the little girl who had been created by that union angered Leilani even

more. Considering her work done for the day, mindless of whoever would be required

to take the coffee service and brandy snifter to the kitchen for cleaning, she slammed

out the back door and—with skirts swishing—made her way toward her cabin. Her

sandaled feet crunched hard over the oyster-shell paving.

“Who put a burr under your saddle, girl?”

Leilani stopped, jerking around as John Dirk’s detestable voice interrupted her

grumblings. Her eyes flared as she realized the man was close enough to reach out and

touch her if he were so inclined. She backed away.

“Nothing, Monsieur Jean,” she said, striving to keep the tremor from her voice.

The right side of the foreman’s mouth tugged upward. “Best be careful with your

musings, girl,” he warned then turned away, sauntering off with his hands jammed into

the pockets of his work pants.

Staying where she was until the odious man was out of sight, Leilani hitched her

skirts and ran for her cabin. She knew she would not feel safe until she had a locked

door between them—and even then, she was not so sure such a thing could keep her

safe if he decided to force the issue. Fumbling with the key tucked into her bosom, she

poked it at the lock three times before managing to slide the metal into the channel.

Once inside the cabin, she quickly shut the door and shot the three bolts she had

installed for nighttime security. Leaning her head on the wooden panel, she stood there

trembling, heart racing, sweat beading on her upper lip.

“Yemalla, protect me from that man’s evil,” she whispered to the mother goddess

of her people.

When she was calm again, sure John Dirk was not lurking outside her door, she

pushed away from the portal and went to her altar, dropping down before it with her

head bent. Though to do what she had to required a strict bathing ritual beforehand,

she did not have the courage to go back outside for water to fill the copper tub sitting in

the corner of her one-room dwelling. She had to hope she would not anger the loa by

calling upon them in an unclean state.

With hands that still shook from her encounter with the foreman, she began to

prepare a spell for revenge.

54

My Reaper’s Daughter

A few hundred yards away, Mystery sat upon one of the twin beds Mr. Simmons

had provided for her and Valda and watched her little girl playing with her doll. The

child was dressed in a soft cotton nightgown, sitting tailor fashion on a blanket, her bare

little toes peeking from beneath the hem.

“What are you and Angie talking about?” Mystery asked her daughter.

Valda didn’t look around at her mother. “Angie doesn’t like it here,” the child said,

brushing the doll’s long black hair, “and I’m telling her she’ll get used to it.”

Mystery’s heart ached. The room was as clean as she and two of her sisters-in-law

could make it, but it was depressingly small with two small windows opposite one

another for air circulation, a small wood stove, a large porcelain basin for bathing and

chamber pot tucked into a small cabinet with a wooden seat. Other than the twin iron

beds, there was a small table with two chairs and an empty bookcase. Light came from

three oil lamps scattered about the bare-floored room.

“I know it ain’t what you’re used to,
petite
,” Monique, Colton’s wife, had told her.

“But it is all that is available right now.”

“It will do,” Mystery had replied. Any roof over their heads was better than none,

and since Mr. Simmons wasn’t charging her for the room and would pay her a small

pittance for a salary, she hoped to save what she could—augment it with monies she

could get from sewing—and hopefully buy a small cabin of her own in the village.

But the walls were closing in on her and her heart was breaking as she realized she

had even less now than her own mother had when she and Mystery’s father had Joined.

What furniture and belongings Odell and she had during their marriage had been sold

just to pay her and Valda’s passage home and to give them a little something for food

along the way. She had come home to Charlestown with little more than the clothes on

her back and a portmanteau of outfits she’d made for her daughter.

“Mama, why are you crying?”

Mystery looked up, swiping at the tears that she realized were rolling down her

cheeks. She tried to smile but there were no smiles left in her.

“You were thinking about Daddy, weren’t you?” Valda asked.

Able only to nod, Mystery held her arms out to her child. “Come here, sweetheart,”

she asked.

Valda lay her doll aside and came to her mother, putting her little arms around

Mystery’s neck and crawled into her lap. “I wish Glynnie was here, don’t you, Mama?”

At the mention of the handsome Reaper, Mystery’s heart clenched in her chest.

“Yes,” she whispered. “Yes, I really do.”

“Maybe he’ll come visit,” her child said, and lay her head on her mother’s shoulder.

“Maybe so,” she agreed.

They sat like that for a few moments with Mystery rocking her little girl, humming

to her, then Valda raised her head.

“Mama, tell me a story.”

55

Charlotte Boyett-Compo

Mystery smiled. “Okay.” She scooted up in the uncomfortable bed so she could lean

against its iron headboard, Valda moving with her then snuggling close under her

mother’s arm. “What story do you want to hear?”

“About the princess and the prince,” Valda said. “Where he kisses her awake after

the evil witch put her to sleep.”

Reclining there with her daughter beside her, Mystery forced her mind from the

cramped little room where there was less than eighteen inches between the two beds.

She would not look at the chipped porcelain basin or the scarred table and rickety

chairs, the dented coffee pot sitting on the wood heater or the bare floor over which a

palmetto bug slowly crawled.

“Once upon a time there was a beautiful princess…” she began.

An hour later, Mystery eased from the bed, lifted Valda and carried the child to her

own where she covered her gently then moved away to undress. As she removed her

day dress, she looked longingly at the porcelain basin but didn’t have the energy to

fetch the water from the well though it was only a few feet beyond the cabin’s door.

Instead, she listlessly put on her own nightgown and blew out the lamp, padding

barefoot to her bed, wincing as the creaking springs gave beneath her weight.

With her knees drawn up, one arm flung over her eyes, she lay atop the covers and

listened to the soft breathing of her child. Though she was tired from the trip, the

cleaning, the interview with Mr. Simmons then the meeting with Miss Laverne, she

wasn’t sleepy. Her mind was a seething mass of thoughts—each as gloomy as the next.

She was discouraged, disheartened, and tears pricked behind her eyes as she thought of

all she’d lost when Odell had been killed.

And all she had ached for when she’d met Glyn Kullen.

“Stop it!” she spat, and flipped to her side, curling her body into a fetal position,

thrusting her hands under the lumpy pillow.

The Reaper had ridden away without a backward glance and was gone from her

life as quickly as he’d entered it. He’d left nothing behind except an insistent longing

that was eating Mystery Butler alive and making her womb spasm with a need she

could not push away. Her palms itched wanting to touch him. Her lips burned with

wanting to feel his upon them. Her body ached wanting to know what it felt like to be

weighted down by him.

Tears oozed from her eyes and she buried her face in the pillow. It was not good to

want something so desperately, something she knew she could never have. It hurt so