The Splendour Falls (29 page)

I pushed that thought away, and concentrated on what I could discover about him here. Reading his mind was not an option, so I could only follow his past actions.

The thought spurred me, and I got up – then had to take hold of the back of my chair to stretch the bikeriding muscles that had stiffened into knots.

Paula frowned, borderline sympathetic. ‘Why don't you go put your feet up. You've had two hard days, walking to Old Cahawba, then biking to town. I can't believe you did that.'

‘I'm supposed to exercise my leg,' I said, irked more at my own body than at her, ‘or it won't get stronger.'

‘Yes,' she said dryly, ‘but there's such a thing as moderation.'

‘So I've heard.' I headed for the back door, trying not to limp and prove her point. As I let Gigi into the kitchen, it occurred to me that my cousin hadn't answered my half-joking question. ‘Hey, Paula?
Does
Shawn have an aunt my dad's age?'

She'd been on the way back to the sink, but she paused, answering with a smile of remembrance. ‘No, but he has a second cousin who used to play with us when we were little. Rainbow Maddox.'

‘
Rainbow?
'

Paula's smile turned wry. ‘Her parents weren't from around here.'

‘It sounds like her parents weren't from this planet.' At her ‘be nice' expression, I asked, ‘Whatever happened to her?'

‘Heavens, Sylvie, how should I know? Went back to California with her folks, I guess.' With a purposeful air of dismissal, she finished rinsing out her glass. ‘It's just a silly superstition. Don't be so paranoid.'

The word put an end to my questions. I couldn't afford to have her think I was paranoid any more than I could let her think I was delusional.

Was I? I gnawed on the question. There was no
reason that my nagging unease with this matchmaking had any connection to Dad and his time here. Except that the idea – and despite Shawn's logical explanation about business deals and local dynasties, it was
archaic
at the very least – would, by its nature, go back generations.

Everything
here seemed to go back generations. Maybe that was why the notion of ghosts didn't seem as crazy as it should. If there was any place where the habits of long-dead people and the impact of past events might echo into the present, it was at Bluestone Hill.

I climbed the stairs stiffly, carrying Gigi in one hand and leaning heavily on the banister with the other. At my door, the lilac scent welcomed me back. It was the one peculiarity of Bluestone Hill that didn't alarm me.

Setting Gigi on the bed, I grabbed the back of the desk chair, bending over to stretch my hips and legs. The position put me at eye level with the drawer, and the Crazy/Not Crazy list inside. Was there any point in digging it out now?

I sat down, my fingers slipping unerringly to the secret latch. The compartment popped open easily, and I pulled out my crumpled list. There was something underneath it, and I caught my breath when I realized what it was – a dusty leather book with the ruffle-edged pages of a handwritten journal.

Gigi raised her head, ears pricked, nose twitching. The same alert curiosity rushed over me, my hands tingling as I carefully pulled the book from the compartment. The pages were yellowed with age. I gently ran my finger over the edges and dislodged something, which fluttered to the carpet.

The pressed flower was flat and papery, but the now-familiar fragrance filled the room as if I'd found a whole spray of fresh blooms. Lilacs.

With Christmas-morning excitement I carefully opened the book. There was no inscription in the front, no name. The ink was faded, and the handwriting spiky and uneven. Not exactly the neat script young ladies were supposed to practise.

March 1863. Marnie and I took blankets and medicine to the prison in town. Those poor souls – is that what we would want for our men and boys? When I think of my own brothers, off fighting with our father in Virginia …

The book confirmed my instinctive certainty. Lilac Girl was the Colonel's daughter.

I
spent the afternoon reading the journal, though deciphering might be a better description. By the time Paula called me down for dinner, I was bleary-eyed and pretzel-necked from hunching over the desk to get the best light on the page. I wanted to read the book in order, but it was slow going, between the handwriting, the author's use of initials and shorthand for the things and people common to her but mysteries to me, and the fact that I had to be so careful with the fragile paper.

The entries were a combination of her ruminations
and a diary of events and domestic activities. She seemed so young, but she had a tremendous amount of responsibility. Her mother was dead, and all the men were off fighting. Plus, I'd seen
Gone with the Wind
and Sherman's march to the sea, so I knew there was danger, even for those at home. But I couldn't forget the old photograph in the Davis history book. No daughter in evidence. What had happened to her? I was as anxious for Lilac Girl as if she were a personal friend.

I returned the journal to its hiding place before I went down to dinner. Eventually, I would have to tell Paula about it. The little bit I'd read so far might have value to a historian. She might get some money for it, to help with the house's upkeep. But for now, my roommate was my secret.

Once Gigi was in her crate with her own dinner, I went to the kitchen. Paula was pouring iced tea into four glasses. Addie had just finished setting the table. I didn't understand the dagger-sharp look she threw me until I remembered that I hadn't actually spent the entire afternoon a hundred and fifty years in the past. I'd had lunch with Shawn Maddox, and obviously news of my date had reached the high school campus.

‘Have a seat,' Clara told me. ‘I'm dishing up now.'

Things were looking up on the food front. Clara had made a spicy dish of red beans and rice, with a cucumber salad to counteract the heat. ‘This is fantastic,' I said, barely waiting until she and Paula sat before digging in.

Addie, however, poked at her bowl and said, ‘I can't eat this, Mom. It's nothing but carbs.'

Clara didn't improve things by nodding at me as she buttered a piece of corn bread. ‘Sylvie's not worried about that.'

Addie shot me another glare. ‘She's so skinny, she can eat whatever she wants. Bowls of carbs. Eggs every day. Pie at the Daisy Café.'

Since I realized that the food was not really the issue, I shouldn't have baited her. But I took a big bite of the savoury rice and said, ‘The pie was delicious, too.'

She narrowed her eyes dangerously. I expected another frontal attack, but instead, she came at me sideways. ‘So. Kimberly says you've seen the Colonel's ghost.'

My stomach dropped with a sickening twist. Clara and Paula, who'd been ignoring Addie's sniping, stopped eating to stare at me in surprise and dismay. They couldn't possibly have been more surprised and dismayed than I was.

‘I never said I saw the Colonel's ghost.' Frantically I cast my mind back over the conversation, trying to make certain. ‘Because I
haven't.
'

Which was the truth. I hadn't
seen
anything definitive.

Paula's face pinched in concern. ‘Did Shawn rattle you with ghost stories? He's always been fascinated with the tales, but that's all they are, honey.'

My hand fisted on my spoon. Her patronizing tone was infuriating, but I was already furious at Addie, and at Kimberly, so it was hard to tell the difference.

Clara reached across the table to squeeze my hand. ‘Don't let them harass you, girl. These old houses will play tricks on you. And the woods aren't any better.
When the wind starts blowing the moss around, I'd swear my old granny was coming to get me.'

‘I'm not rattled!' But my voice climbed in panic. I
was
unnerved, just not for the reasons they assumed.

Addie looked like a cat with canary feathers in its mouth, and I couldn't figure out what she was trying to accomplish, other than to make my life miserable. ‘Kimberly said y'all had a whole conversation about spirits and stuff.'

‘Look,' I said, getting myself under control. I wasn't going to convince anyone of my sanity by raving. ‘Kimberly brought up the ghost thing. And yeah, Shawn did before that. I never said
I
saw anything.'

Did I? The worst thing was, I couldn't be certain. Whatever her intentions, Addie had managed to make me doubt myself. Maybe I
was
nuts if I was saying things and then forgetting them.

‘Maybe you blacked out the conversation,' said Addie, as if she'd read my thoughts. ‘I hear that can happen when you're drying out.'

‘
What?
' I stared at her blankly, my brain completely shut down in outrage and disbelief.

‘Addie!' snapped her mother. ‘That's enough.'

My nemesis just shrugged. ‘Everyone knows that's why she's here.'

‘
Everyone
knows no such thing,' said Clara. ‘And neither do you, young lady.'

I turned to Paula and demanded, ‘Why would people think that?' Because the only way they could have gotten that idea was if a certain someone blabbed what the stepshrink had told her.

‘No one thinks that, Sylvie,' Paula said impatiently, but I wasn't listening.

Pushing back from the table, I stood as calmly as I could, worried any quick movement would break my control over my feelings and I would scream at Paula, or pull Addie's hair, or start to cry. ‘I've lost my appetite.'

No one tried to stop me. On the porch, Gigi stood in her crate, her front paws up on one of the metal crossbars, waiting for me, as if she sensed that I was upset. I let her out, fitted her harness and snapped on the leash, taking no chances of her running off in the dark. I moved by rote, because I was choking on emotion.

I headed for the garden, trying to outrun the fury that kept catching me. A few hours of distraction this afternoon, and now I was angry again. At Paula, at Addie, at Rhys. Not to mention Mother, the stepshrink and John. I was mad at the world, and most of all, I was mad at myself.

I
hated
that I'd circled back to where I'd started, wondering if I was crazy, wondering if anything would ever be right again. Other people dealt with tragedy without coming apart at the seams – or so my shrink told me. Why was
I
seeing ghosts and forgetting conversations and imagining connections with the previous occupant of my room?

Kicking off my shoes, I let the gravel of the path roughly massage my feet. I surveyed my work, willed my accomplishments to soothe me. I had gotten a startling amount done, clearing a tiny, pie-shaped
segment of the central circle. Once I'd gotten some of the weeds pulled out, I was surprised at how many of the plants on Dad's list were still alive, just choked and pathetic.

My hands itched to get back in the dirt. Looking at it wasn't enough. Securing Gigi's leash to the bench, I knelt in the planting bed, burrowing with my toes as if anchoring myself and digging my fingers down to the roots of the weeds.

I didn't bother with gloves, and I didn't need light. By now I could go by feel, the texture of the plant, the shape of the leaves. More than that, it was something that I identified through my skin. I didn't think about whether this was strange or unnatural. I just worked the earth, and freed my mind from the awful knots of anger and fear.

The more I thought about it, what Addie implied didn't make sense. No one in town treated me as if I was unhinged. According to Kimberly, most of them believed in ghosts. Or at least the possibility of them. And if they thought I was an alcoholic, it didn't stop them from treating me like returning royalty. As long as their prince accepted me, I was golden, even if I did have bats in my belfry.

And speaking of Shawn … It kept coming back to him. Maybe it was unfair to blame Kimberly for blathering about ghosts to Addie, when she obviously believed in them. But it was Shawn who kept bringing them up. Shawn who was the big fish in this small pond, who ran the Teen Town Council, whose charm and influence were off the chart.

Who was courting me, the last Davis, and apparently heir to not only a lot of money but Bluestone Hill itself. In my head, I saw the triangle of sweetener packets on the table. If the properties were game pieces, they would trap Old Cahawba and give the player a lock on the corner where the rivers met – a lot of rustic paradise for hunting and ATV trails.

There's an old movie,
Gaslight,
where Ingrid Bergman plays an heiress, and this guy marries her and then makes her think she's going crazy. It has something to do with getting her house or her fortune.

Could someone be gaslighting me? I knew from performing, there were plenty of stage tricks you could use: scrim curtains, a TV screen reflected in a pane of glass, a costume and a well-placed mirror. Even fog machines were easy to get.