Poison to Purge Melancholy (31 page)

Horse shook his head. “Forgot. Didn’t have time at Rich’s. Then I left my bathroom stuff packed for this weekend. Didn’t remember until I unpacked yesterday. Figured I’d wait for an opportune moment to get my loving sis to confess before trying to use the antacid again. Anyone got thumbscrews I can borrow?”

Acey raised her right hand. “I, Ann Carter Lee, do solemnly swear that I did
not
place any substance whatsoever inside the Mylanta bottle belonging to Lighthorse Harry Lee—or anyone else’s for that matter—within the last, say, six months.” It didn’t help her case that she was still laughing, or that she added, “This I swear on my father’s grave.”

“Dad isn’t dead yet,” Horse pointed out.

“Clinically, no,” Acey said, “but, I ask you, does he live on in our hearts?”

The kitchen door opened, bringing in a cold draft along with Evelyn, Glad, and Foot.

“Francis persuaded Mr. Spading to tell us which restaurant his sister was at,” Glad explained. “He called on his cell phone and she came.”

“I told her to take the poor man home,” Foot grumbled. “He hasn’t been taking his medication regularly. Then to bring him to a tourist trap and expect him to stay in a claustrophobic motel room while she’s out enjoying herself—if she did that with children, she’d get arrested.”

“I wish I could have done something,” Evelyn said quietly.

Foot shook his head. “You did right not inviting him in, not with all of us here and his socialization disorder. You say you’ve received e-mail from him? If you keep up a correspondence with him . . . Come up to my room with me while I hang up my coat and I’ll tell you some things you can do.”

Evelyn and Foot climbed the back stairs.

“Well, Foot’s converted,” Acey said. “Now he likes Evelyn. As a patient, anyway.”

“Ann Carter,” her mother admonished, this time sounding as if the day’s events were wearing on her. “Ev was ill more than forty years ago. He’s been fine since.”

“Ma, you knew about his history?” Horse asked.

“He told me the first week I met him.” Glad took off her cloak. “I don’t know why—he wasn’t compelled to mention every virus he’d ever had. But, you see, he was in the London Blitz as a child. Apparently, after coming to America, he experienced a delayed form of what we today call acute posttraumatic stress. He committed himself to Dominion and made a full recovery. My response to him was that I started having kids about the same time, and I
still
wasn’t over that. Now, what are you all doing in my kitchen?”

“Clearing the table for you.” Delia had returned with a stack of dishes, setting them beside Sachi. “Don’t argue, we’re almost done. Horse, bring over that empty biscuit plate.”

For a few moments, we all bustled around. Hugh went to help Delia in the dining room, persuading Horse to join them. Acey gave Sachi a hand at the sink. And as fast as I could wrap leftovers, Glad had Beth Ann either put them away or set them on the table near the stove, to be transferred to the basement fridge later.

Miss Maggie, the only one exempt from chores, asked Glad, “Elizabeth lodged British officers during their occupation of Williamsburg, didn’t she?”

“Sad to say, yes.” Glad set the dried fruit on the hutch by the stove. “She needed the extra money, I suppose.”

“Did she list those lodgers in this journal?” Miss Maggie tapped the scrapbook in front of her.

“Under 1781, end of June, beginning of July. The entries are hard to decipher—all abbreviations. She lists one major, three aides-de-camp, and a company surgeon. For just a week.”

Miss Maggie nodded, explaining to the rest of us, “The British hung around about nine days before heading off toward Yorktown.” I saw her logic now. “Red wool” equals “Redcoat.” I didn’t get a chance to quiz her further because, when Evelyn and Foot returned, Glad finally shooed us from her kitchen. On the way to the parlor, Hugh hijacked me, leading me by the hand to the back of the hall, to the little alcove created by the cellar door.

Romantic, I thought, though a poor choice of trysting place because, almost immediately, Evelyn came along. He was balancing the floating island bowl and three Ziplocs of various victuals, and his bag of fuses dangled from his hand.

“The kitchen electric went out again, I’m afraid,” he apologized, embarrassed. “Since these things need to go into the basement cooler, I thought I’d make one trip. Though I’ll, um, be returning for the last desserts in a bit.”

Hugh got the hint, and led me into Beth Ann and Acey’s room, or as I now thought of it, Polly’s room. The vanity lamp was still on, casting a soft glow.

Hugh shut the door, leaning back against it, in case anyone got the notion to barge in. He pulled me into a loose embrace. Think the romance began then? Ha! The first words out of his mouth were, “Do you think Evelyn’s—okay?”

“You mean sane? Or a good match for your mom?”

“I mean, weird things are going on this weekend—someone’s tampering with antacid, and the kitchen fuse box—”

“You think Evelyn’s been rigging the electricity to go out?”

“I suppose you think the ghost is doing it?”

I did, but this wasn’t how I wanted to broach the subject with Hugh. My hesitation doomed me.

He scowled. “You’ve been in contact with the—”

“No, not with the one who’s blowing the fuses.” Too late I saw the flaw in my stalling tactic.

“How many ghosts are there?”

“Just two. I think. Polly Carson—the one Beth Ann and Acey saw—I think she’s sort of based in this room.”

Hugh hugged me closer, all the while doing a wary survey of every corner.

I was tempted to point out the futility of the gesture to him, but said instead, “The other might be Elizabeth Carson—”

“Elizabeth? You mean Mom’s right about her being here?”

“I don’t know for sure. I haven’t made, uh, meaningful contact.” Funny how the English language has no words to express phantom conference calls, or at least, none that don’t make me sound like a nutcase.

“But you’re sure about Polly? You’ve contacted her?”
Violating your promise
was the unspoken end to his question.

I almost used the excuse that Beth Ann asked me to. Or that I had no choice, given the poisoning symptoms. But I remembered Acey’s advice: if I intended to have and to hold Fitzhugh Lee for the rest of my life, then I’d best be honest about a promise I might not be able to keep.

So I started at the beginning and told Hugh everything about my Carson hauntings, not even editing out the parts about being kissed by strange men (and they sure don’t get much stranger).

“Poison,” he said at last, as if that was the only word he’d heard out of my entire chronicle.

“Right. Someone was poisoning John Brennan with mercury fumes and—”

“No, I mean you.
You’re
being poisoned.”

“No, I’m experiencing memories of poisoning symptoms.” Hold the phone, I thought. Didn’t those memories belong to Brennan? Yet the kisses were Elizabeth’s, or a woman’s, at any rate.
Three
ghosts?

Meanwhile, Hugh wasn’t convinced. “You should leave. Go home. I’ll tell Mom you aren’t feeling well—”

I touched my fingertips to his lips to shut him up. “No way am I going to leave in the middle of your mother’s Christmas dinner. Not when she put so much time and effort into it. And”—I took a deep breath, steeling myself, because I knew he wouldn’t like the next part—“I
need
to stay. I need to get to the bottom of this ghost business. If I don’t, I’ll never be able to return to this house again. And I mean to come back, on January sixth for your mom’s wedding. Then many, many holidays thereafter, as your wife.”

He wasn’t happy, but that last magic word got him to press his lips against my fingers, and with such emotion that I pushed myself up on my toes and pulled his neck down, to transfer the kiss to my mouth. When docking was complete, I let myself revel in the sensation a moment, then, fully aware of what I was doing, I closed my eyes and let down all my defenses.

Almost at once, I was thoroughly wrapped in what can only be described as a blanket of love, more pure and unconfined than I’d ever known, producing a wave of powerful euphoria. The feeling didn’t come from Hugh, but he was a part of it. Polly was there and, in that instant, I felt another side of her, another dimension entirely. No,
more
than one dimension—all the love she had, but mixed with something darker. Something ominous.

Hugh and I gasped in unison. His eyes popped open a split second after mine. His expression was nothing less than awe.

“What was
that?!
” he asked, eyes wide.

“You felt it, too? Like a group hug? Only one of the huggers didn’t have flesh-and-blood arms?”

His jaw dropped. “You mean . . . that was . . . I felt . . . ?”

“Yep. You just had your first spirit world encounter.” I brought my hand around to close his jaw for him.

“Who was it?”

“Polly, but not the teenager Beth Ann and Acey saw. This Polly’s already gone through motherhood. And grandmotherhood. And death.” The presence I’d felt had definitely evolved past human existence. “What I think she was trying to tell us was how much she loved her husband, kids, and grandkids. And by extension, you.”

An extension, I thought, which also covered Glad and all her children. That sense of foreboding I’d felt—did Polly mean it as a warning?

Acey’s face came to mind, the way she’d laughed as she teased Horse about his Mylanta bottle, as she tried to keep a straight face while she swore her oath of innocence. All of a sudden, I saw a reason for her behavior. “Hugh!”

“What?!” Startled, he grasped my arms, looking like he thought I’d disappear before his eyes.

“Wait, let me think this through.”

“Think
what
through?!”

“The protrip—whatever—in the antacid. I’m pretty sure I know who’s responsible. Come on. We have to tell the others before anything else happens.”

“The weather that is cold
That makes the maid that is old
for to scold for the want of a Bed-fellow bold.”

—from
George Wheten’s Almanac
, 1753

December 25, 1783—Mrs. Carson’s House

Master Thomas must have
been watching for me from the scullery window in order to meet me in the rear hall so promptly. “Mother says you should wait in her chamber, sir. I’ve laid a proper fire for you there. ’Tis only wanting a spark.”

I hung my tricorn beside the front entrance, noting that the common room door was closed. I followed Tom into the room opposite, equal in size to Jim’s and Riddick’s above it, yet the placement of windows and doors made for an awkward sleeping space. The bed was set between and somewhat overlapping the front windows, so ’twas necessary to walk ’round it to the hearth.

Tom’s “proper fire” was but one thin wedge of a log with twigs and dry leaves below. The lad set wick to it, teasing kindling with poker until the log caught, then with reluctance, he returned to his chores in the kitchen. I took a seat in the one chair, a low-back Windsor whose stain had gone black with age and whose arms wobbled ’neath the weight of my own. I fancied I might mend them with a few brads and a bit of sawdust paste.

Warming hands by the meager flame, I turned to face the bed—the marriage bed of Elizabeth and Thomas. I could picture her there upon the ticking, wearing naught but her shift, her hair free of her bonnet and let down about her shoulders, and in her eye, an allure no man could resist. The image brought heat to my bones as no hearthfire could. Not the heat of desire, rather, the heat of anger, that Thomas Carson should come through all the years of war, still whole and virile, to be put down by foul murder even as he prepared to reunite with his family.

“Sir, you may come in to dinner now.” Polly, framed by the door jamb, bobbed a stiff curtsy. No smile graced her lips and her gaze took in the floorboards.

I stood, bowing. “May I escort you, mistress?”

“No, sir. I am to have my meal with my brother, in our room.”

Reason, perhaps, for her mood. I was glad to hear it, though, for I had need to speak with Elizabeth alone this day. Sooner done, the better. Yet, I felt I should lighten Polly’s temper before going. “A pity, mistress. I fear your loveliness and wit shall be quite lost on Master Tom.”

My words brought her eyes from the floor. No delight danced in them, however, only a heartfelt ache.

I crossed the room to her in three strides. “What is it, Polly?” A notion came to me—I added in a whisper, “You haven’t spoken of our—of what we found?”

“No, sir.” She backed away a step into the hall, her voice a murmur. “I gave you my promise.”

“What, then?”

“Please, sir, my mother awaits you.”

“I would know what troubles you first.”

She looked at me at last, her gaze defiant, her voice remaining soft but angry. “After you left today, before Mother returned, a Mr. Tyler came to the door. He’d heard tell of a man named Dunbar who in the taverns of Williamsburg was pleasing all men with his fiddle. So he’d come from Norfolk to seek you out.”