‘No fried green tomatoes?’ I asked, the closest I could come to a disarming quip.
He grinned. ‘I’ll bet I can swing something for you.’
Almost more amused than cynical, I bet he could, too.
By the time Shawn and I joined the rest of the TTC, I’d seen almost everyone I knew – south of the MasonDixon Line, anyway – and met a lot more. I recognized some from the church, and some from the Daisy Café, but they all seemed to know me, or at least of me.
It was no longer a surprise, but my ballerina smile was getting a workout. Especially at the similarity of everyone’s sentiments. ‘Welcome home.’ Or, ‘It’s great to see a young Davis back at Bluestone Hill.’ It quickly went from irritating to unnerving.
By the time Shawn introduced me to his father, I was glad for the distraction. Mr Maddox was standing with Ms Brewster, who gave me a hug as if we were old friends, then, holding my hands at arm’s length, looked me over.
‘Sylvie, you look lovely. Alabama is certainly agreeing with you!’ Her smile turned slyly teasing, but she stopped short of a wink. ‘Or something is.’
‘Clara’s cooking,’ I said dryly, turning aside her implication more politely than I was inclined to.
I couldn’t pretend I didn’t know this would happen. It was impossible to ignore the buzz of speculation about Shawn and me together, all subliminal, in smiles and nods that I couldn’t address without seeming paranoid.
But I’d woefully underestimated its effect on me. The overlap of my present and Hannah’s past seemed to flicker at the corner of my vision so I wasn’t just seeing women in slacks and shorts smiling at Shawn, but ladies whispering behind fans, distracting themselves from the heat and their corsets with gossip about the latest Maddox/Davis merger.
An expectant pause brought me firmly back to the present, and I realized that Shawn’s dad had said something to me. Zachary Maddox was slick and modern, and surprisingly young. I guessed early forties, unless he just moisturized very well. He had charisma, too, but it was less Tom Sawyer and more politician, bringing to mind what Dr Young had said in the Old Cahawba cemetery. That seemed a lifetime ago.
And they were still waiting. It seemed like a ‘How do you do?’ sort of pause, so I smiled and said, ‘I’m having a wonderful time. You must be so proud of Shawn for organizing the TTC on this festival. And he is so enthusiastic about Maddox Point …’
I left an open-ended pause for him to fill. Another trick of my mother’s – it was hard to go wrong complimenting someone’s offspring and business ventures.
Mr Maddox clapped his son on the shoulder and grinned. I definitely saw the similarity. ‘Yes, he’s a real entrepreneur,’ he said, without any sarcasm. ‘And not quite nineteen yet.’
‘Dad,’ said Shawn, in the aw-shucks voice.
‘How is Maddox Point coming along?’ I asked, hopefully sounding more sincere. ‘Everyone has been talking about it.’
‘Well enough.’ Mr Maddox certainly seemed to take my interest as genuine. ‘We had a few delays with some survey reports, but it’s moving forward now. So, if I can just convince your cousin’s friends over at Old Cahawba that we’re no threat to them …’
He nodded over my shoulder, and I turned to see Dr Young sitting with a handful of young people – college students, from their University of Alabama T-shirts. His dig crew, I guessed. Professor Griffith sat across from him, and they’d been looking my way. Gigi saw them too and wiggled impatiently in her bag. She’d been getting her share of attention from the people we met, but she knew the professors were soft touches for little dogs.
Both of them waved, but it was hard to interpret their expressions. Easier to read was that of one of the girls in the group; stiletto glares tend to carry better over distances, I guess.
I registered the lack of love between the Cahawba crew and the Maddoxes, and scanned the folding tables to see who else I’d missed. Paula and Clara were there – they also waved, though with more obvious encouragement. But no sign of Rhys. I was equally disappointed and relieved. It was hard enough to concentrate without the stress of his disapproval.
Mr Maddox was speaking again. ‘You should take Sylvie out to the Point, Shawn. Take her round on the ATV, and talk about your plans.’
‘Sounds great,’ said Shawn, turning to me under the beaming approval of Ms Brewster and his dad’s more restrained smile. ‘What do you say, Sylvie? This week sometime?’
It sounded like it would be informative but exhausting, physically and mentally. Was I willing to date Shawn to find out why he wanted to date me? And what would Rhys say about that?
‘I’m not much for ATVs,’ I said, leaving the door open for me to wiggle out.
‘Vehicles are negotiable.’ Shawn grinned, as if the matter had been settled, and said to his dad, ‘We’re going to join the gang. See you later, Ms Brewster.’
‘Have a great time, kids!’
I didn’t see it, but I knew her grin widened as Shawn slipped his arm around my shoulders.
Even with my misgivings about the TTC, it was hard not to like them, at least a little bit. Whatever had the town thinking Shawn and his friends walked on water, as I sat with them at the table by the band, my leg propped up and my back to the empty space cleared for dancing, I was surprised at how normal they seemed. For instance, if Caitlin had been deliberately faking her welcome, she would have paid more attention to me than to my dog.
I’d taken Gigi out of her tote, and she was enjoying being passed among some of the girls, practising her wiles on them. The guys were talking about sports – one kept checking the baseball scores on his cell phone, to his girlfriend’s annoyance – and about making the renovation of a swimming hole downriver their next project.
Addie was there too, and I expected her to be as annoying and antagonistic as usual. But oddly, in the full circle of her friends, she seemed not to mind my presence so much. She was the queen bee, and I was just a gnat. I found it more curious than annoying. At least for the moment.
When the guys suggested the swimming-hole endeavour, she snorted. ‘Y’all can work on whatever you want, but the next TTC project is getting the Maddox Point bond passed.’
‘Are you campaigning for that?’ I asked, not to challenge her, but in surprise. ‘Isn’t that a conflict of interest?’
Rather than snap back, she merely arched her brows. ‘Are you going to report us?’
She had a point, but her words sent a small shudder of disquiet down my spine. I couldn’t even say why, since, as she implied, who would care if twelve teens campaigned for something that was in the interest of their leader?
I glanced at Shawn, who’d moved a few places down the table to chat with the guys about who should be quarterback next year, now that he’d graduated. It sounded like an old argument, one so boring and benign, it made me doubt my own doubts. As if I needed any help second-guessing my instincts.
Kimberly startled me by plopping into Shawn’s empty chair and grabbing my arm. Leaning in, she lowered her voice so I had to edge forward to catch her words under the music and chatter. ‘Girl, I’m dying to ask about the other night. I can’t believe you really saw the Colonel. I would have keeled over right in my tracks.’
My composure slipped, my shoulders stiffening warily. I’d known Addie would gleefully tell that tale, but I wasn’t eager for it to spread further. ‘I don’t know what I saw, Kimberly.’ I tried to keep the tightness out of my voice. ‘I was mostly asleep. It was just a bad dream.’
Her face drooped in disappointment. ‘But Shawn said—’
‘Shawn said?’ I shot a surprised and angry glare his way, but he was talking to one of the teen council guys. My look got his attention, though he didn’t break off what he was saying.
‘Yeah,’ said Kimberly, looking confused. ‘Shawn said that you must be really sensitive to the ghosts, because no one has seen them since his aunt Rainbow was here, back in the day.’
Her again. Before I could ask what Rainbow had supposedly seen, Kim
berly’s shift in mood distracted me.
‘My granny has another theory, though.’ Some of her enthusiasm had darkened. ‘She says the spirits are getting more active. The mirror by her door cracked the other day.’
I frowned, leaning in to match her posture. ‘What does that mean?’
Kimberly chewed her lip. ‘She thinks maybe there’s something in the air, stirring them up. Maybe it’s a young Davis back at the Hill. She told me to tell you to be careful.’
There was something in that pause before she spoke, and I jumped on it. ‘Kimberly. Do you believe what your grandmother said?’
Her eyes slid to the side. ‘Well, I haven’t seen anything, so I can’t say.’
Before I could pursue her evasive answer, a movement caught my eye, derailing my train of thought. Reverend Watkins was trying to flag my attention. You’d think someone in his profession would have more innate discretion.
‘Would you excuse me for a minute, Kimberly?’ She agreed amiably, but when I stood, the rest of the council looked at me curiously. ‘I need to walk my dog,’ I improvised. Of course Shawn offered to go with me, but I waved him back into his seat. ‘It’ll just take a minute.’
‘You sure?’ he asked, and though I gauged his expression as carefully as I could, I didn’t see any suspicion.
‘Definitely.’ Whatever the reverend wanted to say to me, he obviously didn’t want an audience.
I collected Gigi and slung the empty tote over my shoulder. Once I was away from the council, I saw the the reverend nod towards an empty table behind some speakers and headed there to meet him. As the afternoon had gone on, more people had clustered near the band, so we would have some privacy.
‘What’s going on, Reverend?’
‘Nothing dire,’ he said immediately, though the frowning slashes of his brows didn’t exactly reassure me. ‘I just came across something I knew you’d want to see, especially after our discussion this morning.’
‘OK.’ It felt like a long time ago. We’d talked about Shawn, and my feeling of expectation in that direction. Something the afternoon had certainly borne out.
‘I found that journal you were interested in, by Reverend Holzphaffel.’ He took a thin leather-bound book from under his arm.
‘And you brought it to me here?’ What could be in a hundred-and-fifty-year-old book that couldn’t wait?
My question seemed to shake him out of his worry, and he smiled sheepishly, the furrows easing from his forehead. ‘Well, I was coming anyway, and I knew you’d be here.’
He was wearing civilian clothes – a polo shirt instead of his clerical collar. But my anxiety didn’t ease as quickly as his. ‘What was in the journal?’
Gesturing to the table and chairs, he waited until I settled with Gigi in my lap before answering. ‘I’d forgotten how uncensored Holzphaffel’s opinions were. Which is what makes them such a valuable historical resource, of course, but remember, it was a long time ago, and people took some things very seriously.’
‘What things?’ I asked. His procrastinating preface was making me even more nervous. As he spoke, he flipped through the volume to a page marked with a sticky note. I guessed the book wasn’t an original; I was horrified by the idea of a Post-it on Hannah’s journal.
‘Folklore. Spirits.’ He looked at me, cynical, at least on the surface. ‘Holzphaffel was from the Old World. Germany. He uses the word hexen a lot.’
Even though I didn’t speak German, the word raised the hair on the back of my neck. ‘As in “hex”? You mean witchcraft?’
He cleared his throat. ‘I mean, people were very superstitious back then.’ He laid the book on the table in front of me. ‘It turns out Hannah Davis had a similar problem to yours.’
The book was a facsimile of handwritten pages, and the cramped, old-fashioned script would have been hard to read from a good copy. But as I deciphered the passage he indicated, the distractions faded, until I was alone with the reverend, the book and the ideas that the words sent spinning through my brain.
The conviction with which the townspeople believe that Miss Davis and Mr Ethan Maddox should marry takes on an unsettling fervour, setting an almost magical importance to this union that recalls the archaic traditions of the Old Country, very out of place in the enlightened New World.
‘ “Archaic traditions”.’ I looked up at Reverend Watkins. ‘What does that mean?’
He sat back in his chair. ‘The South was devastated by the war, in a way that’s hard for us to imagine. Maybe people put a … mystical significance on the match, because they badly needed to believe something would make things better.’
I nodded, making a rational argument to hide how shaken I was by that passage. ‘Coming off the fact that Davis/Maddox marriages sealed business deals that were good for the community.’
He smiled wryly. ‘Superstitions have to start from something.’
‘But …’ I let the word hang leadingly. Something that simple – something that everyone had already told me – wouldn’t have made him seek me out here.
Shaking his head, he answered with obvious reluctance. ‘It sounds ridiculous. But the archaic tradition he’s talking about … In many pagan religions, the, er, marriage of certain parties – king and queen, priest and priestess – symbolized the joining of male and female deities to bless the earth. Make it abundant and prosperous.’
I couldn’t believe he didn’t spontaneously combust explaining that. My face flamed with embarrassment – I got that ‘er, marriage’ wasn’t referring to the legal ceremony. But slowly the heat drained away, as what he was saying sank to the pit of my stomach.
‘So … there’s a real basis for this superstition?’
He demurred with a frown. ‘I don’t know about real.’
‘I mean historical.’ I don’t know why that made it seem less silly and annoying, less dismissible.
‘What you’re going for,’ said the reverend, ‘is that there is a basis in folklore.’
Folklore. Hexen. Witchcraft. People of Holzphaffel and Hannah’s day hadn’t just thought a Davis/Maddox union was lucky, but something more than that. Something magical.
I stroked Gigi’s fur with one hand and traced the cover of the book with the other. I found myself picturing the mazelike pattern of my garden circle and remembering what Professor Griffith said about the plants there, and their lore.
‘May I borrow this?’ I asked, indicating the book.
‘Certainly.’ He slid it towards me. ‘That’s why I brought it to you. I figured you’d want to read more of Hannah’s story.’
‘Reverend …’ I began hesitantly, ‘you don’t believe this hexen idea, do you? That there’s some kind of magic at work when a Davis and Maddox get together?’
Contemplating his answer, he said, ‘I don’t know what to tell you, except there’s power in belief. So tread carefully, Sylvie.’
His carefully phrased warning didn’t ease my mind. Was it that far a stretch from the notion of ghostly echoes to the spine-chilling idea of magic? Maybe not sword-and-sorcery stuff, but the subtle influencing of events?
Gigi licked my face, and I realized I’d said goodbye to the reverend and hardly noticed he’d left. I was sure that made a great impression.
I’d not noticed a lot of things. Like how my guard came down and my uneasiness disappeared while I’d been sitting with the council. How the sway that Shawn had over people really was more than his charm could account for.
Gigi pawed my knee. In a distracted daze, I set her on the ground, slipped the reverend’s journal into her carrier tote and walked her to a strip of grass beside the bank, away from the crowds. I wished I was back in my garden, where I could take off my shoes. My control was fisted tight around too many emotions – fear and disbelief and hysteria. If I loosened the knot even a little, they might all come bursting out, and then I would end up in a mental ward.
The summer sun was sinking slowly, painting everything in a golden glow. Methodically I traced the
pattern of inexplicable events to their beginning. What was the first thing? The aproned woman in the kitchen? The scent of lilacs in my room? Or the shadow at the window?
With a start, I realized I had to go back further than that. To Central Park. What had changed that night?
I cast through my very fuzzy memory. I’d been loaded. I’d been talking about my dad. I said something stupid about believing in magic, and then demonstrated—
My knees folded up under me, and I sat down hard on the kerb. Gigi ran to me and jumped in my lap, anxiously licking my chin, and I hardly noticed.
The world as I knew it didn’t change that night. I did, when I’d admitted – sheepishly, jokingly, with only a small part of myself – that magic could be real.
Superstition, ghosts, magic. What linked these things together? Was it me, or was it Alabama, or was it both?
Chapter 26
When I returned to the TTC table, I must have looked convincingly wan, because no one questioned me when I said I needed to go home. Kimberly in particular was solicitous, offering to chauffeur me, but of course Shawn insisted.
I stayed quiet on the drive, petting Gigi and thinking. The late-afternoon glow had turned to purple dusk, and Shawn switched on the headlights in the shadows of the tree-lined road. He was savvy enough to let the silence stand, but at the turnoff to the Hill, he finally spoke. ‘I hope Kimberly didn’t upset you.’
That was an unexpected tack, and I glanced at him in surprise. ‘Why would she upset me?’
‘I saw y’all talking, and … well, I know you’re touchy about the ghost thing.’
‘I’m touchy’ – anger got the better of my sense, but it was good to feel something besides dazed and confused – ’ because you keep putting words in my mouth, telling people I’ve seen things.’
‘Do I?’ His brow wrinkled in confusion. ‘I thought you said you did.’
That might have worked, made me doubt myself, if Addie hadn’t tried the exact same thing. ‘I know I didn’t.’ Say it, that is. ‘Are you trying to make people think I’m crazy? Or maybe just a little kooky?’