Return to Tradd Street
I closed my eyes to block my sight of the porch with its tower-of-the-winds columns and the front door with its Tiffany glass, and the way the light slanted across the garden, bathing everything in the same golden light as it had for over a century. It’s a piece of history you can hold in your hands. “I thought you were on my side, Jack.”
“I am, Mellie. I always have been. But I thought you wanted the truth.”
I jerked out of my chair again, wincing as it hit the side of the house. “It’s only your version of the truth. I’m sure if I thought long and hard, I could figure a way to make all the pieces fit to show a completely different picture.”
He looked at me, waiting, his eyes not unkind. “Even your mother believed that the ghost was the wronged party, and you just told me that you thought that she wasn’t trying to harm the babies, that she was using your own love for your children to show her own grief. It all fits—don’t you see? Even Louisa’s presence makes sense. Nevin was her son, and he gave the house to you. As his mother, she’s here to protect his interests.”
Leaning closer to me, he said, “Why do you think Louisa donated the cradle to the museum? She must have discovered the package from Bridget Gilbert containing Cornelius’s christening gown, and to assert her own position as mother of the only known Vanderhorst heir, she gave away the cradle. It was her way of protecting her son, of telling Bridget Gilbert and everybody else that there was only one heir, and his name was Nevin.”
I massaged my temples, trying to sort everything into a manageable list, trying to resurrect one lost piece of information. “But how did she know about the package? It was mailed in 1898. Where had it been between 1898 and 1922?”
He was silent for a moment, organizing his thoughts in his head the way I liked to do it on paper. “I don’t know,” he said. “But you know how to find out.”
A tremble rippled through me as I remembered the eyeless woman staring at me from the top of the stairs, and the violence of the exploding windows and the falling light fixture. But I thought of Louisa, too, and the mailed package, and I grabbed onto both of them as proof that Jack didn’t know all the answers. That there was still a chance that he was wrong.
I turned my back on him and headed toward the piazza steps. “I’m going for a walk. I’ve got to clear my head so I’m ready for tonight. I’ll be back before my mother gets here.”
“We’re on the same side, Mellie. Don’t treat me like I’m the enemy.”
My answer was the slamming of the piazza door behind me. The shock of the sound shamed me into the realization that it was easier to be angry with Jack than to admit to myself that I’d been so wrong about so many things for far too long.
By the time I returned to the house, it was near full dark and my mother was waiting on the piazza with Jack. An open sack from Sticky Fingers sat on the floor between them, the aroma of barbecue having no effect on my twisted stomach.
“I called Jack, and he said you hadn’t eaten. I thought I’d bring you dinner. You’ll need your strength.”
I shook my head, avoiding both of their gazes. “Thanks, but I can’t eat right now. I’ll be fine.”
Jack handed me a bottle of water. “Drink this.”
I took it with mumbled thanks and drank it, realizing how thirsty I was. When I was finished, I screwed the top back on and placed the bottle next to the paper sack. “Are you ready?”
My mother nodded, then turned to Jack. “I think it’s best if you stay here for now. I’ll call you if we need you.”
“I really don’t think—” he began.
“They might be more talkative if it’s just us women. We’re all mothers, so we can relate to that.” She frowned. “Besides, you can be too much of a distraction to most females.”
She extended her hand to me, and I took it before we entered the darkened foyer. I reached to turn on the table lamp in the vestibule, but my mother held me back. “Spirits are usually more active without electric lights.” She set her purse on the small table and pulled out a flashlight before handing it to me. “We’ll use this instead.”
I spotted her gloves tucked neatly inside her purse, and another tremor swept through me. Looking behind us, I found Jack standing on the threshold. “I’m keeping this door open, and I’m waiting right here.”
I felt a warm flush of gratitude and other feelings—some I could and others I couldn’t identify—all rolled up in one. “Thank you,” I managed before I turned around and followed my mother into the house.
The house breathed silently around us, the sensation of unseen eyes watching us in the darkened spaces more than a little unnerving. “Louisa?” I called out, my quiet voice amplified by the tall ceilings. “Are you here? We need your help.”
We waited a moment, then moved forward into the foyer. She was waiting for us at the bottom of the stairs. I couldn’t see her, but I felt her, sensed her maternal presence even before I smelled the roses. A tingling in the fingertips of the hand that held my mother’s zipped up my arm, as if a supernatural switch had suddenly been flicked on.
My mother gripped my hand tighter. “Don’t let go,” she whispered.
“Try to make me,” I whispered back, leading her to the steps. I could suddenly hear a babble of voices, men and women and children; could hear the slash of sabers from Yankee soldiers as they hacked at the banister, leaving scars that could still be seen today. A pattering of feet ran past us up the steps, and I felt the brush of a small hand against my arm. It was as if all the house’s residents of the past had come to witness whatever was going to happen next.
I began to tremble, my fingers threatening to slip from my mother’s grasp.
“We are stronger than them,” she said softly, reminding me of all the times she’d said those words to me, and how they’d never failed us. I clung to the thought as much as I clung to her hand, knowing that with all of my uncertainties, it was the one thing I could believe.
I aimed the flashlight toward the top of the stairs, spotting disappearing feet wearing twenties-era shoes and pale stockings. “She’s taking us to the attic.”
My mother looked at me, and for a moment I thought she was going to tell me that we should rethink our plan. Instead she said, “Then let’s follow. She wants to show us something.”
We walked slowly up the stairs, sensing the presence of all the spirits on either side of us, making me feel as if we were running the gauntlet through a potentially hostile crowd. I quickened our pace and made it to the top step just as the door that led to the attic stairs flew open.
“Great,” I muttered, working hard to control my trembling as we slowly walked down the hallway to the attic, pausing only briefly before climbing the narrow steps one in front of the other, our hands awkwardly clasped together.
The full moon outside bled a milky light through the two short windows, illuminating most of the room and throwing the rest in shadow, creating a cityscape of dark shapes along the perimeter. I flicked off my flashlight, allowing us to see a blue glow that was not coming from the windows.
The odd light pulsed and moved, mimicking breathing, its darker center expanding as it moved across the ceiling, then settled in the back corner of the attic. It was the same corner where I’d found Louisa’s trunk containing her scrapbooks, and my mother had found the framed photographs of the babies in christening gowns. “Louisa? Are you showing us this part of the attic to acknowledge this is you?”
We waited for a long moment, listening as the grandfather clocked chimed nine times, the last chime echoing throughout the empty house like a child calling for his mother. There was no response from the spirit, but the light shrank suddenly into a small, glowing ball, centered on the corner floorboard.
I tried again. “Why did you donate one of the cradles? Was it because you knew you weren’t going to have any more children, or is there another reason?”
I was answered again with silence, the ball of light growing small as its intensity increased to the point where i
t was hard to look at it directly. I swallowed, then forced myself to ask the next question. “Did your reasons have anything to do with Charlotte Vanderhorst and her son William?”
A sound like taffeta rustled behind us near the steps. I flicked on the flashlight and aimed it in that direction, but we saw nothing. The air seemed to thicken, making it harder to breathe. My mother clenched my hand even harder, letting me know she’d sensed the change in the atmosphere, too.
I tried again. “Why did you donate the cradle?” I needed her to tell me that it was because she had only the one child and didn’t need two cradles. Anything that would prove to me how all of Jack’s conclusions were wrong.
The light began moving in a small circle, still centered over the floorboard, pulsing like a heartbeat. My mother gasped, and we turned toward each other as the same thought hit us simultaneously.
“There’s something under the floorboard,” I whispered, mesmerized by the blue dancing dot of light that seemed to be nodding in assent.
I closed my eyes, trying to remember where I’d seen my father’s toolbox, jerking them open as soon as I remembered. “Daddy’s toolbox is over by the steps. He brought it up yesterday to shave the bottom of the door because it kept sticking.”
We retraced our steps as I tried not to recall the rustling sound we’d heard earlier, stopping when my foot kicked the black metal box. “I’ve got to let go of your hand just for a few moments. Stay close.”
My mother hesitated before nodding. I trained the beam of my flashlight inside the toolbox as we picked up whatever tools we thought might work to pry up an old floorboard.
Sliding back a box of shoes so both of us could fit in the corner, we knelt to examine the spot where the blue light had been reduced to a single pinpoint. In the small circle of light from my flashlight, we examined the floorboard, relieved that instead of being nailed down with four nails like the rest of the boards, this one had been nailed using only two, one of which had been placed at a forty-five-degree angle, making it easy for me to wedge it out using the claw of my father’s hammer.
“I think someone has done this before,” I whispered as I discarded the bent nail on the ground.
For the second nail, I handed the flashlight to my mother. “Shine this here.”
Using both hands, I worked the old timber up and down, prying the nail loose enough so that I could pull the rest of it out with my hammer. When I heard the board crack after only a few tugs, I cringed as if I’d hurt the house, feeling bad enough about it myself without wondering what Sophie would say.
When it gave way in my hands, I fell backward, then scrambled back to the small hole. The beam from the flashlight threw a triangle of light into the blackness, illuminating a length of what seemed like twine. Reaching inside, I grabbed it between my thumb and forefinger, and slowly pulled it up.
It was frayed and brittle, not completely immune to humidity and age despite the protection of its hiding place. A hiding place, I thought, that was never meant to be permanent.
“It’s twine,” I said, rolling it between my fingers. “Just like the twine used to wrap the old package I found on the porch.”
Our eyes met for a moment before we looked back at the hole beneath the floorboard. “Could the package have been hidden here?” she asked. “It must be bigger than we think.”
Getting down on my stomach, I said, “Shine the light back in the hole.”
I peered inside, realizing that the hole was much deeper and wider than it had originally appeared, reminding me of stories I’d heard of Charlestonians hiding their silver from the Yankees who’d besieged the city in 1864. I imagined Louisa up here in the attic, cleaning up this corner as part of her nesting before giving birth to her first child, and finding the hiding place.
“To the right,” I said, following the light as my mother slowly aimed the beam into the deep recess until it found something to reflect against. With a deep breath and a prayer that there weren’t any lurking spiders, I reached inside and grabbed what felt like a handful of tissue, knowing what it was before I’d even lifted it out.
“What is it?” my mother asked as I carefully pulled away the paper.
I inhaled deeply as we both recognized the christening gown and bonnet. Already knowing what I’d find, I pulled back the neck of the gown to see what had been embroidered there. Susan Bivens.
“It’s the missing third set,” my mother said unnecessarily.
Ignoring the squeezing feeling in my chest, I focused instead on making a mental list of everything I knew, and how what we’d just discovered fit in. Or didn’t. “The invoice Yvonne showed us said it had been ordered in March 1860 by C. Vanderhorst. I’m guessing it would have been Charlotte, since she’s the only one who’d have had a reason. She probably pretended to be Camille when she ordered it.”
“But why would she have another set made?” my mother asked.
I thought hard for a moment, wishing that all the pieces weren’t falling so easily into the spots where Jack wanted them to be. “When she realized that she needed to have a Vanderhorst christening gown and bonnet to baptize her son in. Because one had been buried in the foundation and the other was taken by Bridget. This would have been the set that Nevin wore in his christening photograph, because it had the bonnet. The original bonnet would have been with Cornelius’s family.”
My mother touched my arm, and I stiffened, focusing very hard on just the facts and not what they might mean. “Charlotte hid this here, and Louisa must have found it, along with Bridget’s package.” I swallowed. “Charlotte didn’t die until 1902, which means she most likely received the package when Bridget mailed it in 1898, but for whatever reason decided to hide it instead of destroying it. Allowing Louisa to find it nearly twenty years later. I’m not sure why she would have put the new gown and bonnet in here. I can only hope it was shame.”
I stood, hardly feeling my aching knees from squatting in front of the ruined floorboard. I spun around, looking for Louisa, still hoping she’d tell me I was wrong. “Is this where you found the package from Bridget Gilbert? Is that how you found out that your son wasn’t the legitimate heir?” The pain in my chest was nearly choking me now. “There must have been a letter in the package from Bridget that Charlotte saved with the package, but you destroyed it, didn’t you? You were scared, but not so scared that you felt you should destroy the rest of the package’s contents.”
I wiped at my face, surprised to find tears, and angrily brushed them away. “So why, Louisa? Why did you send me the package? What did you hope to accomplish?”
The air suddenly became charged, like the sky before a tornado hits, the smell of roses now mixing with the dank smell of damp earth. Then softly, I heard her voice, recognizing it from the time when I’d first begun living in this house and Louisa had been protecting me from Joseph Longo. We both want the truth, Melanie. It is time that old wrongs are put right.
“But what is the truth?”
You know the truth. You can see it. But it is not the end of your story. Listen to your heart and remember that sometimes when you think you have lost everything, you have won your heart’s desire.
“No!” I shouted, the word drowned by the sound of the Vanderhorst cradle dragging itself against the wooden floorboards, blocking the exit down the attic steps.
As if propelled by instinct, my mother rushed forward, reaching out to grab the cradle as if to shove it out of the way so we could escape.
“Mother!” I screamed, but I was too late. Her body went rigid as her hands made contact with the wood, like a bird trapped on a live wire. We are stronger than you, I whispered inside my head, and then, as loudly as I could, “We are stronger than you.” I pried one of my mother’s hands from the side of the cradle and clasped it in mine, and then watched as the world disintegrated around me, a tidal wave of sights and sounds that weren’t my own obliterating the attic, the light from the moon, and the gentle presence of Louisa Vanderhorst.
CHAPTER
32
Mine. The word came from inside my head, but also seemed to echo off the high rafters of the ceiling, shaking the fragile glass in the attic windows. My mother’s hand was still clenched in my own, her eyes struggling to stay open. A pounding on the door and Jack’s voice shouting my name and my mother’s name seemed to be coming from very far away.
I wasn’t sure whether I’d passed out, or if time had somehow shot forward. I was lying on my back looking up at the rafters, where the moonlight had been replaced by an eerie fog of ambient light. The pungent scents of rotting wood and damp earth permeated the space, the staccato sound of wood scraping wood echoing throughout the attic, shaking my bones.
“Mother,” I shouted, tugging on her hand. “Let go! Let go of the cradle! We have to get out of here.”
She shook her head slowly, as if she weren’t sure what I’d just said. I tried to stand and pull her with me, but a heavy weight across my calves pinned them to the floor. My toes had already started to tingle from the loss of circulation. Twisting my body, I saw Louisa’s trunk had come to rest on top of my legs. And that was when I realized what the scraping noise was. All around us the furniture was moving, closing in on us like hounds at a hunt—like bricks around a small coffin.
I tried to straighten my body, to find leverage to sit up, but my head hit something hard and unforgiving. Tilting my head back, I saw what it was, and a deep hole of fear burned itself into the pit of my stomach. The tall armoire towered above me, wobbling slightly each time something else bumped into it.
“Mellie! Ginnette! Are you in there? Can you open the door?” Jack’s frantic voice called from the other side of the attic door.
I felt momentary relief until I realized that if Camille didn’t want him to come inside, then he couldn’t. I had to figure this one out on my own.
Slide, scrape, slide. I tried to shimmy my way out from under the trunk, but I couldn’t move at all, making me wonder whether it was only the trunk pinning me down. Something struck the armoire from behind, making it tip forward, balancing precariously for a moment before settling back down.