Jenny Plague-Bringer: (Jenny Pox #4) (17 page)

“
Are you sure?  There’s an interesting story unfolding down here, too, you know.” He
tugged her pajamas down to her hips, and she wasn’t wearing anything underneath. 
His lips traveled downward, between her legs.

“
Stop!” Jenny squealed.

“
Usually squealing doesn’t mean ‘stop,’” Seth pointed out.

“
First, my turn,” Jenny said. “Then yours.  Now, listen.”

Seth rested his chin in his hand and looked at her.  Handsome boy, she thought, for
the millionth time.

Fallen Oak was a large, thriving town, with a tall brick cotton exchange, a crowded
stockyard, and a textile mill, plus a large Postal Telegraph Company office and a
railroad spur connecting the town to the rest of the world.  As they rode through
in the detective’s Ford Model 18, Juliana and Sebastian sat in the back seat, looking
out at the busy little downtown, full of shops, with a two-story department store
on one corner.  The courthouse had a marble facade engraved with the figure of Justice,
blindfolded and wielding a sword, overlooking a neatly manicured town green with a
bandstand.  There was also a sparkling white Baptist church on the central square,
facing the green.  Despite the Depression, Fallen Oak seemed to be bustling and growing.

“
Looks like such a pleasant place to live,” Juliana commented.

“
We should bring the carnival,” Sebastian said. “These people seem like they have money
to spare.”

Juliana laughed. “You’re thinking like a carnie already.”

They drove eastward out of the downtown, past fields of cotton.  Thin, hungry-looking
black laborers in patched clothing worked the fields under the scorching sunlight. 
They didn’t seem to be receiving too much of the town’s swelling prosperity.

They arrived at a three-story mansion on a hill, largely obscured behind ornamental
trees, the entire property protected by a tall, spiked wrought-iron fence.  The detective
pulled up to the locked front gate, reached out the window, and rang a bell on a rope.

“
This is where we’re going?” Sebastian asked, amazed. “This Jonathan Barrett must have
heaps of dough.”

“
I told you that,” the detective replied. “You should listen to his offer.”

“
What will he offer us?” Juliana asked.

“
I wouldn’t know.”

A gray-haired black man in a dark suit and high, starched collar opened the gate for
them, and the detective drove up the brick driveway to park in the circular turnaround,
centered on a flower garden and a water fountain.  The driveway was flanked by ornamental
gardens full of more blossoming, cheerfully bright flowers.  Towards the sides of
the house, the flower beds turned into kitchen and herb gardens.

The man who’d opened the gate glanced at Sebastian and Juliana, then nodded at the
detective.

“
He’s expecting us,” the detective said.

“
Yes, he is.  This way.” The man led them up the front steps and opened the heavy front
door.  They entered a two-story entrance hall dominated by a massive granite fireplace
that lay cold and dark.  The room was paneled in dark oak, and heavy draperies blocked
the large windows.  A wide Persian rug occupied the parquet floor, and a grand staircase
circled up along the wall to the second story.  A few candles burned in the glittering
crystal chandelier overhead, but the room was left in darkness and shadows.  Juliana
felt as though she’d stepped into a massive, finely appointed tomb.

They followed the man deeper into the house as the front hall narrowed and darkened. 
The place didn’t smell like a tomb, at least—it smelled like baking bread, green vegetables,
and spices.  Juliana’s mouth watered.  In these difficult times, she was lucky to
eat one meal a day.

The servant led them straight through to the enormous back porch, shaded by the equally
large veranda above it.  A fine dining table had been set out, with a dozen hand-carved
wooden chairs facing a dozen place settings with spotless white china and silver.

The long dining table was empty except for a man who sat at the head.  He wore a black
suit with a white silk shirt, tailored perfectly to his lean, fit body.  He was immaculately
groomed, like a king, every hair in place, his fingernails spotless, his golden cufflinks
glittering.  Two very dark-skinned young women in skimpy dresses waved large paper
fans, which cooled him from the South Carolina heat and blew away the countless tiny
insects that swarmed in the air.

Juliana had a strong visceral reaction when his dark, deep eyes looked at her.  It
wasn’t clearly a good or bad feeling—it was delicious and guilty at the same time,
like the times when she’d let Sebastian reach his hand under her dress.

“
This is Jonathan Barrett,” the detective told them. “Mr. Barrett, those kids I’ve
been looking for.  Sebastian, Juliana.  Those are their stage names, anyhow.”

“
You’ve brought my guests. Good work,” Jonathan Barrett said, rising from his chair. 
He looked over Juliana and Sebastian, then gestured to chairs on his left side. “Just
in time for dinner, too.  Please sit, both of you.  Are you hungry?”

Juliana nodded.  The answer to that was always “yes.”

“
They’ll serve you in the dining room, if you’d like anything,” Barrett told the detective,
who tipped his hat and returned inside.  Barrett looked them over again, slowly, as
if absorbing them into the darkness in his eyes. “Did you have a good journey?”

Sebastian and Juliana looked at each other, neither wanting to speak first.

“
It was good,” Sebastian finally said. “I’ve never ridden in such a fast automobile.”

“
Excellent.” As Barrett spoke, two large, much older black women brought out food in
such copious amounts that Juliana could have drooled all over the table.  A basket
of puffy rolls the size of her fist, a cake of cornbread, a pot of boiled greens with
peppers, slabs of ham preserved in salt.  They filled wineglasses with a strange orange-colored
drink.  Barrett raised a glass of it. “I should warn you, this punch is made with
real Caribbean rum, nearly impossible to find with the absurd dry laws.  We add the
juice of watermelons and peaches grown right here.” He nodded out to the sprawling
land beyond the back porch.

The back yard sloped down to a peach orchard with small irrigation canals, where workers
were picking the last fruits of the season.  Beyond that, a hill rose up behind the
house, where some kind of construction was underway.  Juliana squinted her eyes, trying
to see better.  It looked like they were erecting a brick wall around several rows
of tall, thick granite columns. She couldn’t fathom what they were building.  It clearly
wasn’t a barn or a smokehouse; the materials were far too heavy and expensive.  A
church, maybe.

“
My family necropolis,” Barrett said, with a sharp smile.  Juliana found the smile
unsettling and strangely appealing.  The man radiated an aura of power, as if his
presence charged the air around him with electricity.

“
What is a necro...necro...one of those?” Sebastian asked.  His eyes kept darting from
Barrett to the plate in front of him, which one of the women was piling with freshly
cooked food.  Clearly, Sebastian was struggling not to grab up the meal by the double
handfuls and cram it into his mouth. 

“
Are you familiar at all with Egyptology?” Barrett asked, looking from Sebastian to
Juliana.  They both shook their heads. “It’s a fascination of mine.  An indulgence,
really.  The study of such ancient civilizations.  How do you suppose they built those
pyramids, so many thousands of years ago, without the benefit of modern industry? 
It seems impossible.”

“
One rock at a time, I suppose,” Juliana said, which earned her a powerful smile from
Barrett.

“
True.  All things must be built that way, mustn’t they, from the humblest home to
the widest empire.” Barrett cut a slice of ham, which Juliana and Sebastian took as
the signal to start eating as fast as they dared.  The food tasted even more delicious
than it smelled.  Juliana knew they would both eat until they were ready to burst,
and then try to smuggle more home with them for later.  She’d never had such a bountiful
meal placed before her.

“
What impresses me about the Egyptians was the scale of their ambition,” Barrett said.
“A pyramid hundreds of feet high, just to serve as a tomb for a single king.   They
outfitted them with everything the king would need in the afterlife.  Gold, food,
clothing, servants....They believed all of this went with them to the other world.”

“
Sounds expensive,” Sebastian said.

“
If they wanted to destroy a dead pharaoh’s soul, they destroyed any image of him,
every painting and statue.  They struck out his name wherever it was carved.  Removed
him from history, as though he had never existed.”

“
There’s an Egyptian strong man in the carnival,” Sebastian told him, biting into a
floury biscuit. “Cheopus the Magnificent.  Shaved head, pony tail.  He can bend bars
of iron.”

“
He’s not really Egyptian,” Juliana said.

“
I don’t think the bars are really iron, either.” Sebastian sipped the rum punch. “This
is so good.  Try it, Juliana.”

Juliana took a drink.  It was so sweet she could barely taste the rum. It was cool,
too, probably from sitting in an icebox somewhere.  She nodded and smiled. “I’ll have
to be careful not to drink too much.”

“
Drink too much?  Such a thing is not possible.” Barrett raised his glass and took
a long drink.

“
Mr. Barrett, sir.” A middle-aged black woman emerged onto the porch, with a scrawny,
big-eyed white boy of six or seven clinging to her skirt. “Jonathan Junior wants to
go and see the pigs.”

“
The pigs!” Barrett glared at his little son, who tried to hide behind the big woman.
“Are you sure you don’t want to see the
horses
instead?”

The boy shook his head, not saying a word.  He looked scared.

“
Pigs!” Barrett shook his head. “Go roll in the mud and be a swine.  What else are
you good for?”

The boy looked like he would cry as the woman led him away.

“
Scared of horses, scared of goats, scared of his own shadow.” Barrett shook his head.

“
Is there a Mrs. Barrett?” Juliana asked.  Sebastian looked at her as if he didn’t
like the sound of that question.

“
She’s upstairs, not feeling well.  She had to take laudanum.”

“
Is she sick?” Juliana asked.

“
She gets sick if she doesn’t take her laudanum,” Barrett said. “I’ve lost my appetite,
and it’s time we talk about why you’re here.” He stood and walked past them into the
house.  Juliana and Sebastian waited until he was out of sight, then crammed their
pockets full of biscuits and salted ham before following him.

Barrett’s study was a spacious room at the back of the first floor, the walls hung
with animal heads: a lion, a wolf, a leopard, and a jaguar, among others, all of them
angled so that they seemed to snarl at visitors as they entered the room.  A wall
of wooden filing cabinets and pigeonholes ended at a 19th-century, saloon-style liquor
cabinet in the back corner.  The black petrified-wood slab of his desk held a heavy
Comptometer mechanical calculator, as well as a telephone and a teletypewriter.

Barrett sat behind his desk, checking a printout.  He quickly put it aside when they
entered, and he directed the older black man from the front gate, who stood at his
elbow, toward the liquor cabinet.

“
I have Canadian whiskey,” he said to Sebastian. “Like one?”

“
Yes, thanks.”

“
I would, too,” Juliana added.

“
A woman who drinks whiskey,” Barrett said. “I’m starting to like you already.”

Juliana did her best not to blush at his smile.

The older man poured the illegal drink into three very old, handmade glasses.  He
placed a cigar box on Barrett’s desk, gave the man a cigar, and lit it for him with
a match.

“
Cuban tobacco.” Barrett smiled as the smoke curled out of his lips. “At least they
still allow us
some
indulgences.  Have one.” Barrett nodded at Sebastian, who reached for a cigar, then
sat awkwardly as the servant lit it for him.  He coughed miserably at the smoke. 
Barrett smiled at Juliana again. “Does the lady smoke cigars, too?”

“
She does not,” Juliana replied, giving him a coy smile she did not actually intend. 
She didn’t know where it came from.  Sebastian regarded her over his smoldering cigar—he’d
clearly seen it.

Barrett made a slight gesture with his cigar, and his servant left the study, closing
the door behind him.