Garden of the Moon (18 page)

It took her moment to uncurl her body and stretch her cramped muscles. Very slowly the flow of blood restored sensation to her numb limbs. Tentatively, she pulled herself to a standing position with the help of the wall for leverage. Along with restored sensation came the memory of her situation.

Quickly, she tried the door latch and found it still refused to budge. Her only hope of getting out of here was to get someone’s attention from the window.

Gathering her grimy skirts around her, she slid beneath the dresser and crawled up the stairs until she could stand upright. Then she climbed to the attic landing and hurried to the window. Using the hem of her dress, she scrubbed one of the small panes clean and peered below at the front yard. No one was in sight. She sighed and leaned back against the window frame. Tears of frustration blurred her vision.

Angry at her own stupidity and unmindful of the grime from the pane coating her hands, she swiped the tears from her eyes. Tears would not unlock the door. Neither would frustration.

You made it through Katherine’s attempts to crush you under a dresser and spent the night curled up on the stairs because you were locked in here. Certainly you can hold up until you can catch someone’s eye to get you out
.

Pulling a moth-eaten chair to the window, Sara sat down and prepared to wait until she spotted a rescuer.

***

Sara had no idea how much time had passed. To her it seemed like days. From the position of the sun in the east, she guessed the time to be a few hours past daybreak. Julie would be home soon. Raina would be serving breakfast and wondering where her mistress was. Hope blossomed inside her. Certainly Raina would come looking for her.

But that hope died quickly. Aside from the attic being the very last place anyone would look, both Raina and Julie normally let Sara sleep until she woke up on her own. If she wasn’t down there, Raina would assume she was just sleeping late. And, since Julie wasn’t even home yet, neither of them would come looking for her if she wasn’t down for breakfast. They had yet to get over the time when Sara roamed her room trying to find a way back to Jonathan and still felt she needed her sleep.

Just when she began to sink back in hopelessness, movement on the lawn below caught her eye. Raina was coming up the path from the garden with a basket of vegetables for Chloe.

Hope rising in her, Sara pounded on the window. Though Raina looked around for the source of the sound, she never looked up at the window. Sara pounded again—harder this time, and with an added cry for help.

“Up here, Raina. I’m up here.”

Raina again glanced around. But still didn’t look up.

Desperate to gain Raina’s attention before she disappeared inside the house, Sara grabbed a tarnished silver candlestick and swung it hard at the glass. The resulting explosion rained glass all over the floor and down on Raina. Cool, fresh, clean air rushed in at Sara through the broken window.

The falling shards of glass had finally drawn the slave’s attention. Raina looked up.

She stuck her hand through the opening and waved it. “Up here, Raina.”

Shading her eyes against the glare of the sun, she stared, mouth agape. “Miss Sara, whatcha doin’ up there? You should be in the dinin’ room havin’ yo breakfast.”

Sara couldn’t very well tell her she’d been up here all night looking for a letter from a ghost. Not Raina. She had to think fast. “I…I came up here last night to see if I could find…” Find what? She struggled to finish the thought. “For a mirror to replace the one on my dresser,” she finally blurted. “Mine got broken.”

Raina shook her head.

“Ain’t fittin’ fo you to be doin’ dat. Samuel take care of it. Now, you come down from there an gits yo breakfast.”

“I can’t. I’m locked in,” Sara called back. “Come open the door for me.”

“How you do dat?” Raina, one hand on her hip, craned her neck to see Sara,

“Just come let me out.” No need for further explanation that would more than likely scare the bejesus out of the poor maid. “Now, please!”

Raina nodded and ran toward the house.

A few minutes later, the door opened to reveal Raina, a puzzled expression on her face. “Door wasn’t locked, Miss Sara.”

“Yes, it was. I tried to open it over and over and the latch wouldn’t budge.”

Raina looked down at the latch, then back at Sara. “Can’t be. Dey’s no way to lock dis here door.”

***

Julie joined Sara on the veranda where she’d retired to sit in the shade of the huge Corinthian columns to think about the mess she’d ended up in the evening before. How did a door that had no lock get locked? She didn’t have to wonder
who
did it, just
how
. She couldn’t think of a logical explanation. Then again, Katherine had managed quite a few things that didn’t come with rational explanations.

“Raina tells me you locked yourself in the attic last night.” Julie sat in the wicker chair beside Sara and folded her hands in her lap. A half smile curled her lips. “Mind telling me how you managed that?”

Casting a sidelong glance at Julie, Sara centered her attention on the young black boy sweeping the drive with a bundle of twigs. Dust clouds rose in the air that reminded her of the choking dust in the attic and a chill chase down her spine.

“I don’t care what either of you think. I
was
locked in. It was not my imagination.”

She hesitated for a moment. “Katherine did it.”

Julie’s expression became serious and her gray eyes grew the size of lemons. “Katherine?”

Sara nodded, and then turned toward her friend. Leaving nothing out, she told her the events of the night before.

“How can you be certain it was Katherine?”

Sara frowned. “Who else would want to hurt me?”

Obviously having no reply to that, Julie just shook her head. “Why did you go up there anyway?”

“To look for a letter.”

“A letter? From whom?”

“From Katherine to Maddy. My father said Gran told him about it and that I had to find it.”

“Did he say why?”

“No. He said Gran never told him.”

A thoughtful since grew between them. Finally Julie spoke again. “What made you think it was in the attic?”

“That’s where I found Maddy’s diary.” Sara shrugged. “It just seemed like the logical place to look.”

“Maybe it seemed so, especially since Katherine went after you again. But I have to wonder, if it is up there. If she didn’t want you to find it, why would she lock you inside the very place it was hidden?”

Perhaps being frightened out of her mind had impeded Sara’s cognitive thinking. She hadn’t considered that, but what Julie said made a lot of sense. If the letter had been up there, it made more sense for Katherine to lock Sara
out
of the room, not
in
it.

She sighed resignedly. So that meant she was back to the start. Where else could the letter be?

***

That night, pushing the letter from her thoughts with the hope that looking at the mystery of its whereabouts with a fresh eye in the morning would help, Sara considered this last attack by her nemesis. The thing that stood out in her mind was that, this time, she’d been the only one in danger. After weighing the events of the last few days, she decided that Katherine’s wrath had been aimed at only her all along. She had no proof that Katherine set the fire. Barn fires were not an uncommon occurrence on plantations. A careless slave, wet hay, the sun focused through a window pane, lightning all caused fires. The barn fire may well have been coincidence and because of the strange happenings at Harrogate, Sara had automatically relegated the blame to Katherine.

She glanced at the portrait of Jonathan above the mantel. His dear face made her yearn to be with him. It had been so very long since she’d seen him, really seen him. Oh, she’d sensed his presence, but she wanted to
see
him, to be held by him, to feel his lips on hers. Until this very moment, Sara hadn’t realized how empty she was inside, how lonely her soul was without him, how very much she missed him.

Unable to look at his dear face any longer, Sara turned away, tears streaking down her cheeks. She bent double to ease the pain slicing through her heart to its very core. Sobs issued from her in a deep choking outpouring of her sorrow. Despite her vow to end this, she could not remove the thorn of desolation from her soul.

A long time later, the sobs ceased, leaving her drained and empty. The tears had done no good. The pain of separation from the man she loved, ghost or mortal, it made no difference, just could not be assuaged.

Sara dried her eyes and laid the handkerchief on the table at her side. As she did so, she saw something that stopped her heart cold–Maddy’s diary. Suddenly, as though mobilized by a strong wind, the book flopped open and the pages began flipping wildly. When they finally stopped, Sara stared at the date. It was the very day after the entry she’d read last.

But the diary had been locked in her grandmother’s trunk. How had it…

She turned to Jonathan’s portrait. His smile had deepened. Returning his smile, she picked up the book and began to read.

June 21, 1805

The days have passed slowly, the nights even slower. I lay awake at night thinking of Jonathan, of his arms about me, his kiss pressing on my lips, his gentle voice whispering words of love in my ear. At times, I think I shall die of wanting him. At others, I try to believe that Katherine will relent and free him. I think I shall never know what it is to be truly happy again.

This morning, no longer stand the ache in my heart, I made a decision. I went to Katherine’s room to beg her to release Jonathan from their betrothal, but she would hear none of it. She actually glared at me with an expression that chilled me to the bone and said, “He will never be yours.” There was something ominous in the tone of her voice, as though she’d do anything to keep him from me. I continued to try to persuade her
…

The room began to spin, and Sara gladly gave herself up to it, eager to reach the end result.

***

Maddy stood just inside the doorway to her sister’s bedroom. Katherine sat at her dressing table, still clothed in her filmy, white nightgown and calmly running a brush through her waist-length, brown hair.

“You demean yourself with all this begging, Maddy.”

Maddy stared at her sister’s back, her mirrored expression sending fear filtering through her. She’d seen Katherine at her worst, but even that did not reach the level of the evil she saw in her sister’s eyes and heard in her tone at this moment.

Still, Maddy pressed on. “You don’t love him. Why are you doing this?”

Katherine scoffed at Maddy’s question as if it were some kind of joke. “Love is for fools. It has nothing at all to do with why I’m marrying Jonathan.” She smiled malevolently at Maddy’s refection in her mirror. “I’m doing it, sister dear, because at last I have the very thing you want most in the world, the thing you would give your life to possess.” She swung around, her brown eyes glittered as she glared at Maddy. “And I fully intend to keep him, so don’t pin your hopes on him ever being free to marry you. Jonathan Bradford is mine.”

Maddy’s heart sunk. She’d hoped against hope that she could talk woman to woman and change her sister’s mind. Obviously, she’d been blowing smoke in the wind. Katherine was taking an inordinate amount of pleasure from Maddy’s heartbreak and wasn’t about to set Jonathan free.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get dressed. Mother and I are going to the dressmakers for a fitting on my wedding gown. That is if that lazy maid ever gets in here to help me dress.” She threw the brush down, stomped across the floor, pushed Maddy aside, and leaned out the door. “Floree! Get your black ass in here, now!”

Maddy cringed at Katherine’s verbal laceration of the gentle black woman who had taken care of both of them since birth. Many times she’d begged Katherine to treat the maid better, but she knew that, like her insane hunger to hold onto Jonathan, nothing Maddy said would make Katherine develop a gentler attitude toward Floree. Even though their mother and father had objected to Katherine’s lack of feelings when dealing with their slaves, she continued to treat them callously.

Moments later, Floree bustled into Katherine’s room. Her breathing was labored from running up the long flight of stairs. “Sorry, Miss Katherine. I’s tendin’ a birthin’ in the quarters. Chile came behind first. The po momma—”

Katherine threw up her hand to stop the flow of words. “I don’t want to hear about some worthless Nigra’s child-bearing problems. Lay out my dress and do my hair. Now!”

“Yes ‘um.” Floree picked up the brush and began brushing Katherine’s hair.

“This midwife nonsense is interfering in your household duties, Floree. I intend to speak to Momma and Papa about stopping it. You have enough to do right here in the house.”

Floree turned to Maddy with pleading eyes.

“Katherine, Floree takes care of all her duties quite well. There’s no reason she should not continue to be our slaves’ midwife. It takes a lot of extra burden off Momma’s shoulders.”

Katherine’s lips were moving, but Maddy couldn’t hear what she was saying. The room began to spin. Her head felt light. Her mouth wouldn’t work. Something was sucking her into a spinning tunnel.

Chapter 15

Sara had barely slept the night before. All she could think about was getting to Floree and finding out more about her nemeses, Katherine, and the letter. As soon as she’d returned from Maddy’s world, she’d recalled Floree being present at the birthing of Latisha’s child that she and Julie had attended in the salve quarters. Given the advanced age of the freewoman Negro midwife, there was no doubt in Sara’s mind she was the same slave that had taken care of Maddy and Katherine as children and then as young women.

Not wanting either Julie or Raina to come with her, she had sent word through one of the other house slaves for Samuel to saddle a horse for her. Donning Gran’s old riding breeches, she hurried through the house and out the back door. Samuel waited just beyond a crop of oak trees with two horses. One horse sported a side saddle for Sara, the other a standard saddle.