Page 53 of The Attic on Queen Street
Ignoring me, she said, “There was a small invoice that I almost missed—from a haberdashery shop. It was for an embroidered name to be put on a pink muslin blanket. Apparently, the person ordering the embroidery must not have been of the class of young women who were taught how to embroider practically from the cradle.”
I stretched my legs out in the closet and tilted my head back so that I could stare at the ceiling. “Fascinating,” I said, my voice flat. “So what was the baby’s name?”
After a dramatic pause, Yvonne said, “Evangeline. Which,coincidentally or not, is the name of the famous Longfellow poem published the same year.”
I frowned, flipping through my brain file again. “Doesn’t sound like the sort of name an uneducated enslaved person would be familiar with to name her daughter.”
“No, it doesn’t. Sadly, that’s the last I could find of her. I’ll keep looking, though. But if that was her original grave site, then your guess that she died in the fire of 1861 instead of during the earthquake of 1886 would mean she would have been a young woman of around fourteen when she died.”
“The right age for someone who would have a charm string,” I said.
I startled at the sound of a door opening in the outside hallway. Whispering into my phone, I said, “Yvonne—I have to go. I need to check on the children.”
“Yes, dear. You give those sweet babies a kiss for me. And Jack, too.”
I pressedend, then stood, hearing my knees crack, and waited for the rest of my body to adjust to being forced to stand. General Lee snored gently on his back in the middle of the bed, his paws in the air in surrender. After glancing at the children on the monitor, sleeping peacefully in their cribs, I tiptoed toward my bedroom door and pressed my ear against the cool wood surface. Holding my breath, I listened.
It took me a moment to identify that I was hearing the slap of bare feet running down the hallway, accompanied by the slower gait of another person—another person with the tap of heels and the clang of jewelry. The hair rose on the back of my neck, but I wasn’t afraid. Slowly, I opened my bedroom door and peered out into the night-light-lit hallway.
I smelled roses, pungent enough that if I closed my eyes, I could have imagined I was standing in the rose garden in May. I stepped into the hallway, feeling the now-familiar sensation of my bare feet pressing against a loose button. I stooped to pick it up, pausing as I looked down the hallway at the night-light’s reflection on a dozen more buttons lined up in a row like stepping-stones.
Being careful to avoid treading on them, I followed them down thehallway to where they stopped, directly in front of Nola’s open bedroom door. My chest tightened as I peered inside. The bed was empty, her covers pulled to the floor. I knelt to peer beneath the bed, alarmed to see that Porgy and Bess were gone, too.
Turning back to the doorway, I caught a glimpse of an unusual object on the nightstand, a black and ominous shadow in the shape of a small coffin. I gave an involuntary shudder as I moved past it, quickly crossing the hallway and then shivering in the chill of the old house as I descended the stairs.
The telltale jingle of collars from the front parlor guided me in that direction. I stopped abruptly, nearly colliding with a hard and naked chest that smelled like Jack. He placed his hands on my shoulders and gently turned me toward the clock.
In the glow of the pale predawn light through the windows, I spotted Porgy and Bess first. They were rolling around on the floor in their usual puppy play, but there was something different about it. Something odd. I squinted in the dim light, eventually realizing that there were three dogs. I recalled leaving General Lee snoring on my bed upstairs, so I squinted harder, trying to determine where the interloper had come from. I hoped against hope that it wasn’t Rebecca’s dog, Pucci, knowing that would mean Rebecca couldn’t be far away.
Goose bumps rippled my skin. I stepped closer to Jack for his body warmth, then followed his gaze toward Nola. She stood in front of the clock, her hands on her hips, her head tilted as if in question.
“Nola?” Jack said softly. “Is everything all right?”
A puff of condensation rose from his mouth when he spoke, confirming that we were definitely not alone. The hairs on the back of my neck stood at attention, my eyes failing to find anything lurking in the dark corners.
“She brought me here,” Nola whispered back.
“ ‘She’?” Jack asked.
“The girl. The one with the melted face. She came back.”
I shivered, then gave a casual glance behind us. “I can’t see her.”
Nola shook her head without turning around. “Her mama said not to let anyone see her face.”
I shared a quick look with Jack. “Because of her burns?”
Nola shrugged. “She didn’t say. She brought her dog this time.”
Porgy and Bess bounded in front of us, only the muted outline of a tail of the third dog still visible.
“His name is Otis.”
Jack and I stepped forward to stand on either side of Nola. “You can hear her?” I whispered.
Nola nodded. “Well, sort of. It’s like... talking in a dream. You don’t see the lips move or anything, but you hear the words inside your head, you know?”
“Yes, I do,” I said. “She must be a very strong spirit to be able to communicate with you. Most people who aren’t... sensitive... usually can’t hear them, which is why there are so many ghost sightings but rarely stories of the ghosts actually speaking.”
