The Awakening Page 10

  “It’s okay,” I said. “We’ve other things to talk about. And I’m sorry I haven’t been around much lately. Maybe when I get caught up, I can take some time off and we can make a day of it. Lunch, a movie, maybe some window-shopping on King Street.”

  “That sounds wonderful,” Mama said. “Doesn’t it, Lyn?”

  “What? Yes, divine.” My aunt smoothed an invisible wrinkle from her slacks. “You know what I’d really love to do, though? We should make an appointment with a photographer and have our portrait taken. We haven’t had one since Amelia was a little girl. People always talk about doing things like that, but they never get around to it. Then one day you wake up and it’s too late. Someone close to you is gone and all you have left are regrets and memories and an old snapshot or two if you’re lucky.”

  “Oh, Lyn, how morbid,” Mama scolded. “And what a thing to say to someone who just came from the doctor.”

  My aunt looked chastised. “I didn’t mean you. You’re as healthy as a horse. You said so yourself. And now that you look your old self again, there’s no reason to put off having our picture made.”

  “I’m not my old self,” Mama said. “My hair has grown back and my skin is looking better, but no one is ever the same after cancer.”

  “Maybe not the same,” I said. “But you’ve never looked lovelier.”

  “Thank you, Amelia.”

  “You and Aunt Lyn are still the most beautiful women I’ve ever known.”

  My aunt put a hand to her heart. “Chile.”

  “And you’re right about that portrait, Aunt Lyn. Pictures are an important keepsake. When I was little, I adored nothing more than poring through all the old photo albums of you two when you were girls. Remember, Mama? I knew so little about either side of my family and those photographs made me feel connected even though I had a tendency to make up my own stories about your past. For a while, I convinced myself that you were long-lost princesses. All those gorgeous party dresses and formals you wore. I created a whole fantasy in my head about foundlings and an evil stepmother.”

  “We did have beautiful dresses,” Mama mused. “But only because Mother could sew like a dream. We certainly weren’t wealthy.”

  “She did have a way with a needle,” Aunt Lynrose agreed. “Unfortunately, I didn’t inherit her sewing or cooking skills.”

  “You never had the patience to learn,” Mama said. “You were too much of a free spirit.”

  “Was I? That was so long ago. I hardly remember what I was like as a girl.”

  I listened to their back-and-forth with remnants of my dream still floating through my head. Melancholy settled over me as I pulled up my knees and hugged my legs. I felt like a little girl again, hearing their soft drawls as if through an open window.

  “I had a dream about you last night, Aunt Lyn.”

  She looked up in surprise. “About me?”

  “You were talking to Mama about a dress. I suppose that’s why I remembered those old photo albums.”

  “What an odd thing to dream,” my aunt said.

  “It was very vivid. You said the crystals on the skirt twinkled like starlight when you danced.”

  “The midnight blue one,” Mama murmured.

  My aunt looked stricken. “Of all things. Why would you dream about that dress? How could you even know about it?”

  “I must have heard the two of you talking about it when I was little. It seemed more like an old memory than a dream. I recalled whole chunks of your conversation.”

  Now both my mother and aunt looked troubled.

  “What else did you dream?” Mama asked.

  “You were sitting in rocking chairs drinking sweet tea by an open grave.”

  They both look horrified.

  “What an awful dream!” Mama exclaimed.

  “I suppose it was a little macabre, but it wasn’t a nightmare. I wasn’t frightened, at least not at that point. Maybe the open grave symbolized Rosehill Cemetery. Remember the way you used to sit on the front porch reminiscing? Sometimes I would hear you through the open front window. The cemetery was so close. I could smell the roses on the evening breeze.”

  My mother and aunt exchanged a glance.

  “Anyway, you were talking about that dress. And I remember something about a missed curfew and Aunt Lynrose being sent away.” I watched their faces carefully. I’d taken them by surprise, that much was obvious.

  My aunt said in a strained voice, “I had no idea you’d overheard all that.”

  “I must have been very young. I had no recollection of the conversation at all until it came back to me in a dream. Even then it was interwoven with other scenes and vignettes so that I couldn’t really distinguish between dream and memory. But it seems from your reactions that my recall must be fairly accurate.”

  “What I don’t understand is why it would come back to you now.” My aunt’s hand crept to her throat. “Oh, Etta—”

  Mama said softly, “It was just a dream, Lyn.”

  “No, she remembers. But the timing...” She put her fingers to her chin and glanced away.

  “What about the timing?” I asked in confusion.

  “You’ve never said anything about it before and it does seem odd that you would have such vivid recall of an obscure conversation,” Mama said, which did not at all answer my question.

  I set my empty tea glass aside and leaned forward. “What happened back then? Why was that dress so important?”

  My mother gave me a warning look. “It wasn’t the dress and none of it matters now anyway. It all happened a long time ago. Lyn went through a difficult time when we were younger, but there’s no point in dredging it up now.”

  “We both went through difficult times,” my aunt said as she reached for my mother’s hand. “But we made it through, didn’t we? Somehow.”

  “And now it’s all in the past,” Mama said.

  “If only.”

  “It is,” Mama insisted. “You’re just going through one of your blue times.”

  My aunt gave her a wan smile and then turned to me almost shyly. “I know it must seem as if we’re speaking in riddles, but I’ve never been one to dwell. What happened...happened, and that beautiful gown became symbolic of my unhappiness. And that was a real shame because Mother worked so hard on that dress. Each crystal sewn so precisely and so lovingly by hand. She called it my starlight gown.”

  They drifted back, murmuring softly to one another and leaving me once again on the outside looking in. I watched and I wondered. Why had that memory surfaced now? Why had my aunt been sent away? And why did the memory of her starlight gown still haunt her after all these years?

  “You’re out of tea,” Aunt Lynrose said as she nodded toward my empty glass. “There’s a pitcher in the kitchen. Shall I bring it out?”

  “No, let me. I want to see how Binx is getting along anyway,” I said as I got to my feet. I had a feeling they needed a moment alone to speak freely with one another so I used the tea as an excuse. Besides, I wanted to see the kitten I’d brought home from my last restoration. I’d found the poor thing huddled at the bottom of a hellish hole, his only company the remains of a murdered woman and her ghost. Aunt Lynrose had named the kitten Binx after a character in her favorite book and given him a home on her screened back porch. But we all knew it was only a matter of time before Binx would have the run of the whole house.

  He greeted me at the door, attacking my foot and balling himself around my hand when I knelt to play. As with Angus, proper nutrition and a loving home had transformed him in a matter of weeks, and I hoped that dark abyss where I had found him was just a fading memory.

  My mother’s and aunt’s voices drifted in from the garden and I realized they couldn’t see me where I crouched on the floor, trailing a spindle of twine for the kitten.


  “What else do you think she remembers?” my aunt asked in alarm.

  “I doubt much else. She must have been very young when she overheard us. We haven’t talked about that night in years.”

  “And yet she dreamed about it now. That can’t be a coincidence coming so soon after I received the newspaper clipping I showed you.”

  “That clipping may not mean anything,” Mama said.

  “It means everything! When I think of all the time that was lost to me...to us...”

  “That time wasn’t yours,” Mama said.

  “No,” my aunt said bitterly. “He and Father saw to that, didn’t they?”

  “Shush,” Mama said. “You’re getting yourself all worked up and that’s not like you. Has something else happened that I don’t know about? Something’s weighing on you. I could tell the moment I walked in the door.”

  My aunt paused. “He’s asked to see me.”

  I sensed my mother’s shock all the way through the screen door. “You won’t go! Oh, Lyn, you can’t confront him. Not in your state.”

  “Why not? You don’t think it would be interesting to hear what he has to say for himself after all this time?”

  “It’s been nearly fifty years. Half a century. How can anything about that man possibly matter to you now?”

  “He’s old and sick. It’s never too late to develop a guilty conscience. Maybe he’s the one who sent the newspaper clipping. Maybe he wants the truth to come out before he dies so he can ask for forgiveness.”

  “And if he does?” my mother asked in resignation. “What will you say to him?”

  “That all will be forgiven the moment hell freezes over.”

  * * *

  I left Binx unspooling the twine and wreaking havoc on the back porch as I eased inside the house and made my way down the hallway to the bathroom to wash my hands. The overheard conversation with my mother and aunt was possibly even more distressing than the one I’d dreamed about.

  Whatever had happened in my aunt’s past obviously still haunted her and now I was haunted by the cool, calm way she’d talked about withholding forgiveness. It was almost as if she had come to a resolution while she and my mother talked. Maybe I was making too much of that conversation, but I felt the weight of another dark premonition pressing down on me.

  Prosper Lamb was right. The birds were coming to me for a reason. I was having those dreams for a reason. Something bad was about to happen. A door had been opened because someone close to me was about to pass.

  I splashed cold water on my face until the darkness receded.

  When I came out of the bathroom, I heard music playing from one of the bedrooms.

  Standing motionless in the hallway, I turned an ear to the sound. The strands were very faint as if a music box had been wound behind one of the closed doors. Slowly, I walked down the hallway, pausing at each room to listen. When I got to the end of the corridor, I pressed my ear to the door. The sound came from inside and I had a sudden vision of a mobile over a crib, stirring gently in a draft.

  Where that vision came from, I couldn’t imagine. My aunt didn’t have children and if there’d been a mobile over my crib, I certainly couldn’t remember it.

  I glanced around the hallway, trying to ground myself in the here and now. To my right was a wall of artwork, mostly serene gardens and seascapes, but no portraits. To my left was a wall of floating shelves on which my aunt had displayed a variety of collectibles—vases, figurines, a bowl of potpourri. I studied the curios, not realizing that I was searching for something until my gaze lit on a pale blue porcelain box on the top shelf. The keepsake was only a little higher than eye level for me now, but as a small child it would have been well out of my reach.

  Something about that porcelain box bothered me. I knew without picking it up that it would have a white cameo on the lid and that it meant something special to my aunt.

  The faint tinkling drew my attention back to the door. I pressed closer and concentrated my senses. I couldn’t make out a melody, but those random notes intrigued me. As I put my hand on the knob, my gaze lit again on that blue box and the memory that had been trapped at the fringes of my subconscious finally broke free.

  I remembered standing on the other side of the door as a child. I even had a vivid image of the room—small but beautifully appointed with a dainty white crib, a rocking chair and shelves of books and toys. Over the crib, a butterfly mobile stirred in a draft, triggering the music box.

  Even as a little girl, I’d been mesmerized by those faints strands. I hadn’t been able to tear myself away even though I knew the room was off limits. The door had always been kept closed and so when I’d seen it ajar, the lure had been irresistible.

  I sank deeper into the memory, recalling my delight at all those hidden treasures...until I’d sensed a presence behind me. I’d turned to find Aunt Lynrose on the threshold gazing down at me in shock. “What do you think you’re doing? You know you’re not allowed in here.”

  My aunt had never so much as raised her voice to me and her anger startled me so badly that I dropped the doll I’d been admiring. Why she would have a roomful of toys that no one could play with, I didn’t know. It never even occurred to me to ask.

  “I’m sorry,” I said as I backed away. “I didn’t mean to be bad.”

  Her face crumpled. “You aren’t bad and I should never have spoken to you in that tone. I’m sorry, too.” She picked up the doll and cradled it to her breast for a moment. “But you shouldn’t be inside on such a lovely day. Come out to the garden with me. You can help with the tomatoes.”

  She took my hand and led me from the room. Then she locked the door and placed the key in the blue porcelain bowl high up on a shelf where I couldn’t reach.

  The memory floated away and I was left standing in the hallway with my ear pressed to the door. For some reason, I didn’t have the nerve to turn the knob, let alone remove the key from the blue porcelain box. It had been one thing to breach forbidden territory when I was a child, but as an adult, snooping into my aunt’s private affairs was unforgiveable.

  But it wasn’t just my conscience or ethics that kept me from that room. I didn’t want to validate my memory. That ominous premonition was pressing down on me again and I somehow knew that if I opened the door, there would be no turning back.

  I didn’t know why I was dreaming about my mother and my aunt beside an open grave. I didn’t know why birds were gathering in Woodbine Cemetery or why the ghost of that murdered little girl was tethered to the baby crib in the willow copse.

  If I opened the door, I might find the answers to all of my questions, but I had a terrible feeling that something else, something precious, would be lost to me.

  Thirteen

  A little while later, I left my mother and aunt in the garden and returned to the cemetery. As much as I needed to make up for lost time, I had an overwhelming desire to blow off the rest of the day and head to the library for research. I had a feeling there was so much more about Woodbine Cemetery that I had yet to uncover. My dreams were deeper clues than I had first realized. How my mother and aunt tied into the overall mystery, I still didn’t know—didn’t want to know—but it was safe to say they had secrets. One of those secrets might even be buried in Woodbine Cemetery.

  I didn’t see the caretaker again for the rest of the afternoon, nor did I notice any other visitors. I had the cemetery to myself and I was grateful for the solitude. The hours passed peacefully.

  Late in the day, though, when the light began to fade, my thoughts turned once again to the ghost child. I braced myself for another manifestation as my gaze swept the cemetery. If a hint of woodbine drifted on the breeze, I didn’t smell it. If an ethereal hand tapped a melody on a wind chime, I didn’t hear it. But just before sunset, I did happen upon another disconcerting f
ind.

  At the very back of the cemetery, enclosed in a wrought-iron fence, was a space designated for infants and children. A perimeter of live oaks wove a thick canopy over the area, protecting the tiny graves from summer’s heat and winter’s chill. Within that cool, deep grotto, a lush oasis of bromeliads and ferns had cropped up.

  I stood shivering beneath the branches as I gazed across that sea of lonely graves. A section for children wasn’t unusual, especially in older cemeteries, but I’d never run across one quite like this. The headstones were all a similar design—open cockleshells large enough to shelter a sleeping babe. The striking visual of the seashells, coupled with the gentle sway of the Spanish moss, created an eerie, underwater feel that deepened the air of loneliness.

  “So you’ve found the enchanted garden,” a female voice called behind me.

  I whirled in shock, taken aback by the sight of Claire Bellefontaine picking her way across the damp ground toward me. My mind instantly reeled back to the ghost child outside the restaurant window as she’d screamed out her rage. The sound of that unnatural howl seemed to echo across all those lonely graves as Claire Bellefontaine lifted her hand to wave at me.

  She wore tall boots and a sensible cotton jacket that protected her from mosquitoes and brambles, but she looked no less striking in her casual attire. She had her hair down today, a silvery-gold curtain that billowed gracefully in the breeze. My hands had involuntarily clenched at my sides and as I relaxed my fingers, I made an effort to assume a nondescript smile.

  “I’ve startled you,” she said as she moved closer. “I apologize. I wasn’t trying to sneak up on you. I thought you would have heard me tramping through the weeds.”

  She had moved as silently as a ghost across the landscape. “I was lost in thought, I guess.”

  “It is a place for contemplation,” she agreed. “I hope you’ll forgive the intrusion.”

  “Of course.”

  She patted the small cross-body bag that rested at her hip. “I’ve come armed with a camera. I wanted to get a few shots of the cemetery before you’re too far into the restoration.”