Authors: Lila Felix
“Marie? Is that what she’s calling herself these days?”
I tugged on Porter’s hand when he didn’t immediately respond.
“I don’t understand.”
“Marie is not the name she was given. At least this time she picked a good French name. Shame she ended the cycle.”
“When I came here before, you wouldn’t tell me anything about her. Why now?”
The woman rolled her eyes and fiddled with an alligator head, one of two that made up the arms of her chair. “Couldn’t talk about it until she was gone. Well, until she expired.”
Porter’s jaw ground against itself while his face reddened.
“But she’s not—gone—she’s still here—tormenting us.”
“You can’t just kill the vessel. You must cut the tether. Don’t be ridiculous. Your mama knew how these things went.”
Porter attempted to lunge at the woman, but was frozen by something invisible.
“Now, now, Jeansonne. Nothing worthwhile was ever achieved by force. Come here, child. Your husband is going to take a minute to recover.” Beside me, Porter’s face has turned ashen, his eyes were fixed straight ahead like he’d been seized in time never to recover.
Her bangle covered wrist lifted as her hand reached out for me. Her skin was silken, it reminded me of the fabric Adele’s dress had been made of.
Turning my hand over and over again, she studies the lines with the tip of her index finger. The place is quiet. I expect a dramatic entrance any minute by someone needing a hex or worse.
“She grows, doesn’t she? First appearing to you as a little cher and now growing every time you see her. Why do you suppose that is?”
The ludicrous answer knocked at the back of my mind, but I knew better than to make myself look like a fool. “You had to fall in love with him, didn’t you? That’s where all the trouble began. The more you fell in love, the older she got. The older she got, the more cracks in her contract.”
“Contract?”
“Mmm…there’s no such thing as a one way deal in this house.”
Instead of answering anything, the tiny woman with the royal disposition was only posing more questions.
“Ever see a picture of Porter’s grandmother?”
I shook my head. We hadn’t gotten that far.
“She looks an awful lot like Marie, mais non?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, did you know that a spirit can revive itself, generation after generation? Come back and cause all kinds of hell to the ones they despise? Of course, it requires a great deal of know how.”
I shook my head against the nonsensical rattling of information. The way she held my hand made my head foggy and my thoughts dim.
“His mother, that fat tub, made the same choice as you. Falling in love with one of the Jeansonne’s didn’t fall into Marie’s plan. Come to think of it, neither did her lover murdering her. Either way, she’s gone.”
“She’s not gone. She haunts us.” Porter’s tone grew desperate for more information as did my heart.
“That’s because she’s only half of the deal. The bastard must die too. I can…” She canted her head to the side, regarding us with a sinister half-grin. “Take care of the situation for you.”
My brain screamed against the idea.
“At what cost? If I’ve learned anything in this life, it’s that nothing is free.”
At the boom of his voice, she released my hand and latched onto Porter’s. Again, he was stilled in place.
“Your money is worth nothing except kindling in my house.”
“If not money, what?”
“A future favor. I name the price at a later date. Could be next year. Could be the next lifetime. But your friend would be gone and this time for good.”
I took a few steps back from the confrontation and the potentially life-altering deal on the table. The links this woman had planted were finally starting to form a chain. Everything was connected.
And Porter had circumvented a grave mistake.
My eyes broadened with the realization.
“Are you saying that Marie is the reincarnatioMarin of Porter’s grandmother?”
A wind of disgust blew through the dishrag curtained windows.
“I doubt she would’ve ever consummated the marriage. Anyway, his grandmother, the one he knew, was his step-grandmother. They weren’t actually related. Collette killed his real grandmother. Oh…poor Porter. Doesn’t even know his true family history.”
Insincerity poured from her mouth like melted wax. This whole twisted scheme was her doing, along with her cohorts, and she took pride in the mess she’d made and the rubble in its wake.
She let go of his hand and wiped her own back and forth as though wiping the dirt from her hands—along with any subsiding guilt.
“And my mother?”
“Your mother, like this chit, wasn’t part of the plan. Marie was to marry you, the house and all your wealth would be hers and then she and Rebel would murder you. I suspect that Marie grew a conscious after three generations of lying and deceit and killed herself over it. She’s stupider than you. Half of your wealth was my cut. And now it’s gone.”
Her lament over the lost money was the most genuine emotion she’d expressed so far.
“Do whatever it takes. Get rid of her.”
“And the boy?”
“I’ll break my grandfather’s contract. Wait…that was part of it too. To keep Rebel close to us.”
“Ahhh…the story is still unfolding.”
Spiders crawled along my arms and webs clouded my vision.
“We need to leave, Porter. Now.”
There was no time to wait for his answer. Pulling him by his jacket, I trudged through the room at a slow pace, feeling like the door grew further and further from my reach with every step.
“Help me, husband.”
At the word, his attention snapped to me and broke the sludge we were buried in. We reached the door and at the touch of dusk’s sleepy sunlight on our faces, we were free from the grasp of evil that clutched the air of that shack and its mistress.
Except now we were strapped into a deal with the core of our repression.
“What will she ask of us?” I whispered as we walked numb into the falling night.
“Me. She will ask something of me. This has nothing to do with you. Let’s get you back to the hotel before more demons find us.”
His tone stung. Even in the precipice of our ghosts, he’d always said we would get through it together.
My heart cracked. I was alone again.
Chapter Twenty
Porter
Processing the compilation of lies would be no small task, but it was secondary to Delilah. I should’ve never gone to The Plots that night. I should’ve sent someone to collect my debt.
Paying a price for Delilah was the biggest mistake I’d ever made.
She’d probably be married off to someone normal by now if I hadn’t felt the compulsion to have her for myself.
Even being alone would be infinitely better than being married to an impetuous bastard who can’t even decipher the lies right under his nose.
“Why are we running?”
Her voice, as it always had, stopped my haste. “I’m sorry. I just want you as far away from all of that as soon as possible.”
“I’m not scared, Porter. I know you will keep me safe. You always have.”
The truth in those tomorrow eyes killed me. She believed her own words, no matter how far from the truth they were. I would always
attempt
to protect her from the world. My ability to do so was the subject in question.
“I’ve done a pathetic job of it. But that ends tonight.”
She caught me in a dead stare, attempting to get a reaction from me. She would get none, mostly because I couldn’t look her in the eyes again. That clear blue unabashed love staring back at me clung to my heart and would never allow me to follow through with what I needed to do.
What I should’ve done in the first place.
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m leaving tomorrow morning after I go to the bank.”
I stuffed clothing into my suitcase without a care.
“Where are you going?”
“Home.”
The bed slumped with her light weight as she sat on the side.
“Maybe I should ask where I’m going. Isn’t that what’s happening? You’ve decided this is all too much? I’m not worth the money after all, right? To think, we almost made it a month.”
“That’s not what I think at all. I think I should’ve set you free before you were involved in all of this. This is not worth it. I’m not worth it.”
She stalked across the room and every cell in me came to life. All I wanted to do was for her to tell me it was worth it. That she loved me. That she was happy. That I’d given her something she would’ve never been able to have with her parents.
It was then, looking down into her blue eyes that a surge of strength took hold of me. It was the same swell that originally seeded the first time I saw her. I knew that day, that I could take her out of the shadows.
I knew the minute her petite foot touched the ground at the base of the stairs that I could show her light when all she did was hide in the darkness.
Except all I’d done was rob one darkness to replace it by another.
She put her delicate hands on either side of my face. Her skin had always been soft, despite the hard labor which had taken up most of her adolescence.
My eyes drew downward, not able to face her.
“Look at me, Porter. If you’ve never looked at me before, look at me now.”
“I’ve always seen you, Delilah.”
“So you know that when I speak, I only speak the truth.”
“Tell me your truth. Tell me it one last time.”
The sting of pain caused me to hold my breath before the full weight of her act piqued my mind. She’d slapped me.
“I’m sorry.” Her hands covered her mouth. “Don’t you dare leave me, Porter Jeansonne. Don’t even think about it.”
My heart beat in my chest. It sounded like Benjamin’s galloping hoofs between my temples.
“All I wanted was for you to have a better life.”
“And I do. Even in the simplest of definitions, Porter. I do.”
“We’ve just made a deal with someone who doesn’t forget things, Delilah. She could ask for anything in return. Don’t you understand that?”
With hands on her hips, she looked to the heavens. Closing her eyes she sent a prayer to heaven. I couldn’t hear all of the words, but saw when she muttered ‘help me’.
“Whatever she asks of us, we will provide. We can’t worry about a future that hasn’t come. We can only hope for the best. If I learned nothing else from my wretched childhood, it was that.”
I sank to the chair behind me in a slump. I’d never wanted her exposed to anything but happiness.
“How did this happen?” I darted my eyes around the room, asking the furniture as much as anyone else. “I went to save you and here you are saving me. I think you’ve been saving me from the beginning. I couldn’t live without you if I wanted to. I want you in my arms in the mornings and I want your laughter at my table. I just—I didn’t know what else to do. Forgive me, love.”
I waited for her response. Instead of speaking, she crossed the room and sat in my lap, burying her face between my neck and my shoulder, her fists holding onto me for dear life.
I loved this woman in my arms.
I’d been empty and cold before her.
We stayed like that for hours. Her warm breaths filtered through my shirt, warming me and my heart over and over like the most reliable of clocks.
Early the next morning, I woke before Delilah. Though I’d come into town for business, all I wanted to do was remove my wife far away from this grime-filled place. The city had lost its luster next to her.
Before leaving, we stopped in at my office and I handled the immediate business and left as soon as I could.
The only thing I wanted was to get home with Delilah.
“Are you sure there’s not more you want to do?” She asked after we’d already left the outskirts of the city.
“I’m sure. I think I’m going to work from home from now on. If they need things signed or a meeting in person, they will have to come to me.”
She stared at me for a while before speaking. “I thought the city had its hooks in you.”
“That was before you got your hooks in me.”
The entire way home, we avoided the bigger issue. I didn’t want to scare her any more than she had been.
“It’s going to be quiet without Marie around. She’s been with me for so long. It will be like mourning her again.”
Delilah straightened her skirt and dusted off some invisible dirt from her shoes. “I’m sure we could find things to do.”
Her blush told me the full intentions of her meaning.
“I’m sure we can.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Always.”
“I’m still trying to wrap my head around everything and I’m sure there’s more to discover. But why? Why would someone go to all that trouble? Just for your money?”
“Once, when I was small, I overheard my mother tell someone—it must’ve been June or maybe another maid—that above all, every woman wants to be young and beautiful and every man wants to be rich. I’ve always thought it was complete insanity, but in Marie’s case, I think maybe she was right. All this time they were after my family’s money. I know she was always asking me if she was pretty and complained when I didn’t tell her that enough. Maybe we’ll never know the depth of their deceit. Maybe it’s better if we don’t know.
“I guess that’s why she hated me. You didn’t love her because she was ugly on the inside and you love me even though I’m…”
“I love you because you are beautiful in every way possible.”
We rode for a few more hours before she spoke again.
“I stole the necklace from Rebel. It was hanging in the stables.”
“And what if you had gotten caught? I would’ve killed him if he hurt you.”
She looked ahead, to the road that led us home with her chin up. There were so few times that she faced forward with her chin jutted out in strength that I made sure to pay attention to the next words from her mouth.
Inherently, I knew they would be important.
“I didn’t think about myself. I only thought if I could get the necklace that somehow it would rid me of the ghost—and in doing away with the ghost—you could not be so—haunted.” She paused. “You know Rebel killed Marie, don’t you? I know we haven’t accused him out loud, but there’s no doubt in my mind.”
“I do. I had no idea that I’d married an investigator. Honestly, I am a fool for not thinking of it myself. They were involved. Everyone knew it.”
“You can’t very well figure things out if you’re wallowing in unfounded guilt.”
~~
For the rest of the afternoon, I listened to the sounds of Delilah through the house. No longer was my house silent. The issues that surrounded us weren’t buried, but merely creeping below the surface, awaiting their turn to be resurrected.
I feared the repayment to the woman I’d traded for peace.
I anticipated resistance on Rebel’s behalf in ending the contract, but I hoped that a little added blackmail on my part would curtail his efforts.
But most of all, I feared Delilah’s happiness.
Would she ever be able to forgive me for everything I’d put her through?
“He’s out there again, Porter.” My mother poked her head into my office, but kept her feet on the other side of its threshold.
I growled and she grabbed her chest. “I’m sorry, Mother.”
“It’s fine. He makes me jumpy. For the last few days he’s been looking for something all over the grounds. In the bushes, in the back near the pond. It’s disconcerting to say the least. June tried to run him away from the porch yesterday with the broom, but he came back minutes later. He’s frantic with whatever he’s lost.”
“I’ll take care of it. He won’t be working here any longer.”
“It’s about time. He’s a creepy little man.”
My mother called every man little.
After she left, I got up from my desk at the sound of commotion outside. Rebel was talking to Delilah from afar, but her posture and clenched fists told me exactly how his presence was making her feel.
Rushing outside, I vowed to interrupt his presence.
“Rebel, you need to leave.” Shouting the command, I hoped to get his attention off of her and onto me. I stepped in front of Delilah but she refused to be in my shadow.
My wife was done cowering.
“I work here.”
“You’re not working. Slinking around looking in plants and in the dirt is not working. You don’t know the meaning of work.” Delilah interjected before I could form the words.
“I’ve lost something. I have to find it.”
It was with the scratch of his voice that I initially noticed Rebel’s appearance. While he’d never been well put together, he resembled a roughed-up savage. Deep circles cradled his eyes and even with our distance I could see the clods of dirt underneath his fingernails.
“I said leave!”
He ignored my second demand and I took one step toward him, determined to back my words up with a solid promise.
“Rebel, you would’ve found it by now. Don’t you think it would’ve shone in the sunlight?”
My chest seized with her question. Rebel was operating under the premise that we had no idea what he hunted for.
She’d blown that theory away with the most innocent of intentions.
“Who said it was shiny?” His tone singed my ears with hostility.
“No one. I just—assumed—it was something precious—why else would you be searching so—I…”
“It was you! I thought you were just in the stables looking for a little side action. You were stealing from me.”
“She found it. I told her to keep it. It is my property after all.”
I shook with the lies that so easily flowed from my mouth.
“Found it? And where is it now? It’s mine!”
“Why do you need it? Tell us why it’s so important and maybe we will consider giving it back.”
Delilah stood true. Not even a flinch touched her body at my blatant dig for information.
“It was Marie’s. I loved her. It’s the only thing I have left of her.”
“You loved her so much you killed her.”
There was no bounce-back time from my statement. I thought it would surprise him that I knew.
“At least while she was alive and—not acting stupid—I didn’t treat her like dirt.”
“I was honest with her about my feelings. It was an arranged marriage.”
He huffed out a laugh through his nose. “Is that what you thought? An arranged marriage.”
“Wasn’t it?”
My trouble was that I constantly craved answers to questions that should’ve died with Marie.
“It was arranged by us, if that’s what you mean,” he sneered.
“No. That’s not what I meant. I don’t even care. Just leave us alone. There’s nothing for you here. Marie is gone. There’s no reason for you to still be around.”
He snorted. “Marie is not gone. She won’t be gone until I release her. We had a deal.”
“She’s been released. I haven’t seen her. You haven’t seen her. She’s gone. You should’ve let her go in peace years ago. Contracts can be broken and new ones can be struck.”