‘How are you all right if the car’s totalled?’
‘Air bags, love. Fantastic invention.’
Gigi was sitting in the flower bed, getting dirty. My knees weak, I joined her, lowering myself into a soft, green patch. ‘Where are you? What happened?’
‘Gasden. It was the closest city.’ There was a pause, then he lowered his voice. ‘I swerved to avoid a deer. At least I think it was a deer. And I, ah, may have corrected in the wrong direction.’
‘Oh my God.’ His humour was reassuring. ‘I told you. Right side of the road. I don’t even have a licence and I know that.’
‘Yes, well.’ His voice dropped further, giving a feeling of intimacy to the conversation. ‘I’m not twenty-four, or however old the rental place likes you to be, so I wasn’t driving, if you know what I mean.’
‘You rebel. Out joyriding with your old man.’
‘An old man who is waving me over now. I’ve got to ring off.’
‘Sure, of course.’ I suddenly felt embarrassed for calling, giving in to the impulse to reassure myself.
‘I’ll see you shortly.’ He paused, as if he was going to say something else. But he merely finished with, ‘Cheers, Sylvie,’ and hung up.
I lowered the phone to my crossed legs and looked at Gigi. ‘I just wanted to make sure he and his father were all right,’ I told her. She stared back with halfclosed lids that asked, very clearly, who I thought I was fooling.
Saint Mary’s Methodist Episcopal Church was almost as old as Bluestone Hill. It had a gabled roof and a tall steeple, which, as Paula had predicted, I could see from the road. The brick foundation looked meticulously preserved, and the wood siding had a new coat of white paint. Set in a clearing, surrounded by majestic trees and a cloudless sky the colour of a Tiffany’s box, it was as pretty as a postcard.
Paula had put her foot down when she found out I planned to bring Gigi. We almost fought about it – again – but I backed down when I remembered I could be on my way to a shrink instead of pedalling voluntarily to a place I wanted to go anyway.
I parked my bike against a tree next to the iron fence that surrounded the churchyard. Though I supposed it would be better manners to go in and meet the reverend first, I was drawn irresistibly to the northeast side of the clearing.
The Alabama River glinted through the trees, moving more slowly here than up by the Hill. I followed a tidy path to a fenced graveyard, the stones a patchwork of white and grey and age-darkened brown. On the graveyard’s outer edge, the markers were arranged in a modern, orderly fashion. Closer in, the headstones were grouped, often with another iron fence around them, or a tree that someone had planted long ago to shade the dead.
It was a peaceful place. There was a gentle serenity to the way the sun dappled the ground, like a patterned quilt draped over those who slept.
‘Hello!’
The greeting startled me, especially after my fanciful thoughts. I whirled, one hand going to my heart. I was going to be old before my time at the rate I was racking up shocks.
‘Sorry.’ A man in a clerical collar stood on the path behind me, raising his hands in the universal gesture of ‘don’t freak out’ and smiling sheepishly. ‘I suppose a graveyard isn’t the best place to sneak up on someone.’
‘Um, no.’
I’d expected the reverend at a historic church to be similarly antique, but this man was maybe in his early thirties. Tall and thin, he had light brown skin and features that pointed to a mix of races, and his eyes were kind and friendly. I guess that was a plus in his profession.
‘I’m Reverend Watkins,’ he said, unnecessarily. ‘If you’re Sylvie, your cousin called and told me to keep an eye out for your arrival.’
‘That was nice of her.’ I thought I managed to say this without sarcasm, but the glint in his eye said maybe I’d missed the mark.
‘Are you looking for your family’s plot?’ he asked, surprising me. Not that it was a major intuitive leap, but I’d expected he’d want to talk about my feelings first. At my startled silence, he pointed further down the path. ‘The Davises are over here, in the oldest part of the cemetery.’
He pressed the latch on the gate and gestured me ahead of him. I paused for a moment, not worried about ghosts, for once, but struck by the deep sense of purpose to this place. Not every sanctuary or temple impressed me as being so … hallowed. This one did, through the soles of my shoes.
‘How old is the church?’ I asked as he closed the gate behind us.
‘Old. Some of the family plots date back to the eighteen twenties, when the church was built.’ He walked casually, with his hands in his pockets. And he still hadn’t asked how I was feeling. ‘But during some restoration in the seventies – the nineteen seventies – there was archaeological evidence that this might have been a Native American site as well.’
‘You mean a burial ground?’ I asked, intrigued by the possibility.
‘That would be quite a coincidence, wouldn’t it.’ He shrugged with a wry half-smile. ‘Probably just an extension of the settlement at Cahawba – much like this was an outgrowth of the ex-capital. But I like to imagine there’s something special about this place.’
We’d stopped under one of the spreading oaks, and I smiled at a memory. ‘Funny. My dad used to say that some spots were meant to be sacred. Which was why successive civilizations would sometimes build one temple on top of another, without even knowing what was there before.’
Dad had designed more than one beautiful cemetery, which was why I’d found it odd that he’d wanted to be cremated and not interred. But looking at one of the raised marble mausoleums, I had to think it would have made Dad sad to be in the earth but not part of it.
‘Were you and your father much alike?’ The reverend’s tone was conversational, not the funeral-soft way most people asked about the dearly departed.
I made a so-so gesture with my hand. ‘Mother said we had the same temperament. I guess that explains why they got divorced.’
Reverend Watkins chuckled, as if in spite of himself, then said kindly, ‘You’ve lost a lot in two years.’
‘I’m impressed,’ I said, letting him know that I recognized a leading statement when I heard it. ‘That was a very smooth segue.’
His grimace was rueful. ‘Not so smooth you didn’t catch it.’
‘I’m very shrink-savvy.’ I liked that he owned up to it right away, though. Points to him for being candid. ‘Did Paula tell you about the nightmare?’
‘Yes.’ He nodded, folding his arms, as if settling in for a chat. ‘Except, I gather you weren’t actually asleep?’
I chose my words carefully, not wanting to lie in a churchyard. ‘I’d been asleep. I’d gone down to let my dog out for a pee, then came back up. I could have been only half conscious, moving on autopilot. Haven’t you ever been dreaming on your feet?’
He acknowledged that with a nod. ‘Paula’s just worried about you, that’s all.’
‘Well, I’ve got a lot on my mind.’ Like wondering if something was up at Maddox Landing, and why people kept bringing up ghosts, and what the TTC – or maybe just Addie – was doing in the summerhouse so late. But that wasn’t what he was asking in his roundabout way.
‘Maybe my half-sleeping brain dreamed up a girl jumping into the river,’ I said, then lifted my hand in an oath. ‘But whatever the reason, I promise it is not because I’m contemplating doing the same thing.’
After studying me for a long moment, the reverend nodded. ‘All right. You’ve satisfied me and kept your word to your cousin. I’ll let you get on with what you really came for.’ Smiling slightly, he nodded to a fenced rectangle of ground. ‘Colonel Davis is over there.’
He’d taken me by surprise again. ‘Either you are psychic’ – scary thought – ‘or I am really transparent.’
With a soft chuckle, the reverend stepped off the path, heading for the plot. ‘Sylvie, everyone who grew up in this town – which is about ninety-five per cent of the current
population – at least half believes the Colonel haunts that house. I can’t believe you didn’t come to see his grave sooner.’
I laughed, briefly but honestly. ‘I thought it would be at Old Cahawba, so I went there first.’
We reached the spot where a huge oak tree shaded generations of my ancestors. The men had a lot of military titles: Major Jack, Captain Samuel and even a lowly lieutenant. He died in 1969 at the age of twentyone. He hadn’t had a chance to rise to the ranks of his predecessors.
There were a lot of children. No immunizations in 1856. Lots of women dying and being buried with their infants. Motherhood was a dangerous occupation.
‘It’s so weird,’ I said, a little numbly, ‘to go from no roots – that I knew of – to all this.’
Circling the plot, I read more names, saving the big monument on the corner for last. COLONEL JOSIAH DAVIS, CSA 1821–75. The Confederate army was ten years gone by the time he died, but he’d had it etched in stone beside his name.
The inscription below was odd: I WATCH, AND WAIT, FOR THY RETURN IN SPLENDOUR.
A frisson ran down my back, as if that word – watch – had touched a nerve. I’d been certain, from the beginning, that the figure at the window was watching for something.
‘What does that mean?’ I asked the reverend. ‘Is it scripture?’
‘Not really. It could be a reference to the Second Coming, when Christ will return to earth in glory and gather the faithful. Which I’m sure Colonel Davis considered himself.’ We shared a smile at my ancestor’s expense. ‘But local lore,’ Reverend Watkins continued, ‘passed down from those who knew him, says it’s probably a more secular reference.’
‘Oh. “The South shall rise again”? That kind of thing?’
‘Precisely.’
‘I hope he’s not still holding his breath on that one.’
The reverend laughed. ‘Oh, there are plenty of living people who are still holding their breath on that.’
‘How can they?’ I asked. ‘All things considered.’
‘Well, as we’re taught here in the South, the War Between the States wasn’t about slavery, it was about states’ rights. But that’s an ugly history lesson for such a beautiful day.’
‘I suppose it is.’ I read over the nearest gravestones, still searching. I’d wanted to see the Colonel’s marker, to satisfy my curiosity. But my other purpose was to find the information I couldn’t seem to locate in the house.
‘I see Mary Maddox Davis, his second wife,’ I said. ‘And this must be the son from that marriage. But where is his first wife? And the children from that marriage?’
‘You do realize that was before my time,’ the reverend said with a straight face. ‘But they say his first wife specified in her will that she wanted to be sent back to South Carolina, where she was from.’
‘That was unusual, wasn’t it?’
He confirmed that with a nod. ‘Wives are virtually always buried in their husband’s family plot.’
‘Is that why there are no daughters here?’ I pointed to the section with the Colonel’s children. ‘I see sons that must have died in the war. But except for one infant, there’re no girls.’
An uncomfortable expression passed over the reverend’s face. ‘There is one. But it’s not with the others.’
He pointed, sighting along the Colonel’s grand marker, which was canted, not at a nice forty-five degrees, appropriate for the corner spot, but at an odd angle, as if he, in death, had turned to look at something.
I walked forward from the monument. Trying to stay a straight course through the gravestones was tricky, and there was a point where the ground abruptly dipped and came back up, as if there had been a thin trench there. And just beyond that, there was a small, plain stone, covered with dark stains from the elements.
HANNAH DEIRDRE DAVIS
BORN DECEMBER 21, 1852
DIED JUNE 20, 1870
There were lilacs growing over her grave.
My heart gave a pang, as if I’d just learned of a old friend’s death. Which was absurd – I’d known Lilac Girl was long gone. But it was different seeing her grave, knowing from the dates that it was her thoughts I’d been reading, her path I’d imagined down the streets of Cahawba.
Reverend Watkins had followed me from the Davis plot, and I turned to him, emotion making me abrupt. ‘Why is she way over here?’
‘You see that?’ He gestured to the spot where I’d almost tripped, where the shallow trench was all but hidden by the grass. ‘There used to be a line of shrubs marking the edge of the churchyard. The edge of hallowed ground, to use an outdated term. When the cemetery started filling up, the hedges came down, so it could expand.’
My heart slowly sank with an awful suspicion. ‘So, Hannah was originally buried outside the cemetery?’
After a brief pause, during which he seemed to debate what he was going to share with me, the reverend nodded. ‘Apparently she committed suicide.’
‘ “Apparently”?’ He was watching me for a reaction, so I tried not to give him one. ‘She must have, if they wouldn’t bury her on holy ground. That’s the punishment, right?’
‘That would be a reason, yes.’
‘How did she do it?’ I asked, even though, in the pit of my stomach, I already knew the answer.
Watching my face, the reverend told me. ‘She threw herself into the river and drowned.’
Chapter 19
Reverend Watkins looked suddenly alarmed, and he took me firmly by the arm, as if he thought I might pass out. Which, to be honest, I felt like I might.
‘Are you all right, Sylvie?’
‘Yeah,’ I said, not even convincing myself.
‘Let’s go sit down.’ He directed me to a bench under one of the trees. He didn’t speak or prompt me, just waited for me to say something.
‘Was that some kind of test?’ I demanded, anger surging hot under my skin now that the cold of shock had passed. ‘I saw – dreamed about a girl jumping in the river, and you wanted to see how I’d react to Hannah’s grave?’
‘No. Not at all.’ The reverend sounded genuinely contrite. ‘I didn’t think about the similarity until it was too late to change the subject. And once you’d figured out she committed suicide, I couldn’t very well lie about it.’
I chewed on the quandary this posed, wavering in my resolution that my psyche wasn’t making this up. Could I have heard this rumoured about somewhere? I was sure Shawn and Kimberly hadn’t said anything about a girl in the woods.
The reverend was watching me warily, and I slid a guarded look towards him. ‘If I ask you a question, will you promise not to read anything into it?’
‘I promise I’ll try.’
‘Do you believe in ghosts?’
He didn’t seem surprised; I suppose it wasn’t exactly a non sequitur, given our earlier discussion. ‘I believe our souls go on to some other plane. Heaven, I hope. Would you want to stick around here?’
‘Not really.’ But the Colonel might, waiting for the South to rise again. Looking between the two markers, the grand column of the Colonel’s and the small, worn stone of his daughter’s, I asked, ‘What made her do it, do you think?’
It wasn’t quite rhetorical, but I was surprised he had an answer. ‘The story goes that she had a suitor that her father didn’t approve of. The Colonel refused to let them marry, and the guy left town. When Hannah realized he wasn’t coming back, she threw herself off the embankment. The reverend here at the time tried to smooth things over for the girl, suggesting that it had been an accident. But it didn’t fly, at least not with the Colonel. And you see where he had her buried.’
My heart ached for Hannah, and for the cold lack of sympathy from her one family member. I could do the maths. All her brothers must have been gone by then, killed in the war. ‘What a hateful bastard.’
Watkins didn’t correct me, though he said sympathetically, ‘The reverend kept excellent diaries; he implied that Colonel Davis was never quite right i
n the head after he came back from the war.’
‘Whatever happened to her sweet-heart?’ I asked. Did Hannah love him so much that life wasn’t worth living? Did he betray her? There was more story here. It was a far, faint resonance, like a bell rung on a distant hill.
‘No one knows. He was never heard from again.’ Reverend Watkins let that sit a moment, then checked his watch. ‘I have an appointment to give the convocation this evening at the high school graduation. But I hate leaving this on such a sad note, especially when I’ve really enjoyed talking to you, Sylvie.’
Attempting to shake off my disquiet, I arched an eyebrow. ‘Discussing my family’s sordid history, you mean?’
‘Every family has skeletons in the closet.’ His smile took on a teasing slant. ‘And what about you? Are you feeling more peaceful of mind and spirit?’
My own tone turned droll. ‘I’m feeling like Paula might give me some peace now, if that counts.’
Chuckling, he rose and gave me a hand up. ‘It counts for something.’
I glanced back towards Hannah’s grave. ‘Who planted the lilacs for her, I wonder. Did the reverend say?’
Watkins followed my gaze. ‘I don’t recall. I’ll find Reverend Holzphaffel’s journals and see if he mentions them. I read his diaries when I first came here, to get a sense of the history of the place, then put them in a safe place.’ He gave me a wry look as we took the flagstone path towards the front of the church. ‘He didn’t mince words in his opinions of people.’
I bet that would be a lot more interesting than William S. Davis’s book. As he opened the cemetery gate for me, I said honestly, ‘Thank you for your time, Reverend Watkins.’
‘Whenever you want to talk – about the present or the past’ – he grinned – ‘just stop by. I’m almost always here.’ We’d reached my bike and he asked, ‘Are you all right to ride back? I noticed you were limping a little bit back there.’