Page 50 of The Christmas Spirits on Tradd Street
“I know. I’ve thought that myself. But whatever Rebecca is, she’s still family, and despite everything, she puts family first. Remember that she’s the one who told us what Marc was planning after that horrible book-launch party. She’s just kind of stuck in the middle because she’s married to him. It’s not in her makeup to harm us intentionally. But, no. It wasn’t about me.”
He gave me a sidelong glance, and I caught a glimpse of worry.
“It was Nola. At least she thinks it was—Rebecca said it was unclear, but it was a young woman around Nola’s age.” I recalled Nola sitting onher bed, doing homework, her fingers absently rubbing her neck. “Rebecca dreamed that... that Nola had a rope around her neck.”
His jaw began to throb. Jayne reached from the backseat and put her hand on his shoulder. “We got this, Jack. Melanie and I are here. You figure out all the clues, and we’ll talk to the dead people. We’ll get to the bottom of this and won’t let anything happen to Nola. All right?”
For the first time, I felt reassured by Jayne’s presence, glad that Jack and I weren’t tumbling into the abyss alone. I reached over and put my hand on top of Jayne’s. “Stronger together, right?”
She nodded, then sat back in her seat. I did the same, watching the scenery go by as we crossed the Ashley River, resisting the impulse to touch my neck.
As we bumped over the road leading to the house, I was relieved that no specter of a soldier pointing a musket at us blocked our way, although an unsettled feeling, not unlike the one I’d felt the first time I’d been here, coated my skin like acid. I looked back at Jayne and knew she was feeling the same thing.
Jack parked the car in front of the steps, and we all exited. The first thing I noticed was the scent of gunpowder. The second thing I noticed was the underlying earthy odor of freshly turned dirt. I watched as Jayne held her hand over her nose, and once again I felt the nudge of reassurance that I wasn’t doing this alone. Having Jack and his strength and brains with me was always helpful, but it wasn’t the same as having a psychic sister. Although I wasn’t sure I was ready to admit that out loud.
The front door opened, and Anthony stepped out onto the porch. He still wore a sling on his arm from the car accident and still needed crutches because of his sprained ankle, but he now sported a bandage across his nose and had two black eyes. “Thank you all for coming,” he said, his eyes lingering on Jayne for a long moment before turning to me.
Jack reached out his hand to shake. “I hope the other guy looks worse than you.”
Anthony reached for his nose as if he’d forgotten it was there. “Oh, right. Yes. Sadly, I wish I could say it was a valiant attempt to defend myself, but it was...” He stopped. “Actually, it was the oddest thing. Iwas standing on the steps leading to the wine cellar when I found myself tumbling forward. I was alone at the time, so I have no idea how that happened. I suppose I’m lucky I didn’t break my neck.” He held out a crutch. “This saved my life. It got stuck in the hand railing, preventing me from plummeting to the bottom.”
Jayne and I exchanged a glance.
“We’ll head to the cemetery in just a minute. I had no idea it was so chilly. Come on inside where it’s warm while I go find my jacket.”
He began leading us inside, but Jayne rushed to his side. “Can I get it for you? If it’s not in your bedroom, I mean. Because that would be where you’re not wearing clothes.” She pressed her eyelids shut.
“I think she means to ask if she can get your jacket for you to save you from hobbling on your crutches.”
Jayne’s face had turned crimson, but she managed a nod.
A clearly amused Anthony nodded. “That would be nice. I do get tired hobbling around. There’s a small coat closet under the stairs. Just pull on the knob—it gets stuck easily.”
Eager to escape, Jayne walked away while Jack and I looked around us. Despite the Italianate exterior, the departure from architectural norms of the day hadn’t influenced the interior. It was designed as a center-hall Colonial, with formal rooms on either side of the foyer, each separated from the one behind it with pocket doors. From what I could see of the parlor and drawing rooms, the furniture reclined within spectral sheets, ghostly inhabitants of an all-but-abandoned house. It reminded me of my house on Tradd Street the first time I’d seen it, complete with cobwebs and mold stains.It’s like a piece of history you can hold in your hands.Mr. Vanderhorst’s words always came back to haunt me just as my inner voice started tallying up all the repair costs when I entered an old building.
I was about to ask Anthony about his plans for the house and land when my gaze traveled up the wall along the circular staircase, where uncovered oil portraits of unknown people stared down at us from crumbling plaster. “Am I the only one who thinks by their expressions that we’re not...” I stopped, my gaze having settled on the largestportrait, separated slightly from the others as it hung on the roundest section of the wall.
It was a portrait of a dark-haired woman wearing a green silk dress, her hair piled high on her head. She was young, late teens or early twenties. Her dark eyes seemed to gleam from the portrait, the kind of eyes that appeared to follow the viewer. But it wasn’t her beauty or the skill of the painter that caught my eye. That made me stare. It was the jeweled peacock on her bodice that made it impossible to look away.
“Who is that?” I asked, although I was pretty sure I already knew.
Anthony shook his head. “I don’t know—there’s nothing on the frame or behind the portrait that indicates the subject of the painting. Although...”
Jack quirked an eyebrow. “Although?”
“Although I feel as if we know each other... intimately. She has those eyes that follow me wherever I go. I find myself hurrying up the stairs at night just to get away from her.”
I continued to stare at the portrait, recalling the woman I’d seen on the stairs at my house, the dark-haired woman in green with the peacock brooch. I remembered, too, the odd way she’d held her head, and the red welt that encircled her neck. When a person is hanged, Jack had once told me, most don’t suffocate, as a lot of people think. If they’re lucky, they die when their neck is broken by the fall, their bodies left dangling.
I turned to Jack. “I think that’s Eliza. Eliza Grosvenor.” And before I could stop myself, I raised both hands to my neck, just as Jayne walked up to me and whispered the wordlies.
CHAPTER 18
I gaped at my sister, wondering if I’d imagined she’d just spoken that word out loud. “What did you say?” I asked Jayne.
Her eyes were dazed, like those of someone who’d just woken from a long sleep. “I said something?”
I nodded. “It sounded like you said ‘lies.’” I looked back to where Anthony stood next to Jack. If he wanted our help, there was no point in sheltering him from any of the sinister aspects of what it meant to see dead people. “Which is what the woman said to me on my stairs at home before she disappeared.”
