Harbinger in the Mist (Arms of Serendipity) (23 page)

“Don't you see? In the end, the doctor had it right. Abigail Walker was infected with and died of Malaria, not some curse by the slave as Milton had suspected. There wasn't a damned thing Olemargaret could have done to save to her!  If Milton should have been mad at anyone, it should have been himself. Perhaps even the doctor, but certainly not the slave. The night in question, Dr. White was out drinking and playing poker instead of taking care of the gravely-ill Abigail. Why was the slave left alone to care for Abigail in such a state?  She couldn’t do a damned thing, but the doctor could have offered to deliver the baby before the illness reached such a critical point. But he didn’t.

“Anyway, back to your question. Listen to this, ‘
The term Malaria comes from the Italian MAL' ARIA, meaning ‘bad air’. The disease raged for centuries in Rome. It was commonly believed that swamp fumes caused the sickness. Most historians agree that at least four popes lost their lives to it. Here in the United States, we know George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Ulysses S. Grant suffered from it. As a matter of fact, it was so bad in Washington, D.C. that in the late 1800’s a prominent physician lobbied, albeit unsuccessfully, to put a huge screen around the city. Today, many scientists think that 50% of the World’s population throughout history – that’s one out of every two people who have ever lived – have suffered and/or died of malaria
’ Um, where is it? Oh, here we go. ‘
The first widely known treatment was found in South America. Missionaries found that tribes were successfully using the bark of the cinchona tree to treat the Malaria. The locals called it ‘quina quina.’ Once the missionaries carried the powdered bark back to their native lands, it took on the names ‘Jesuits Powder’ and ‘Jesuits Bark.’ It was later distributed as Quinine.
’

“I called a couple of pharmacies and they still use Quinine today. That sent me to my computer again. It seems that, even today with our vast medical knowledge, Malaria is endemic to 106 nations, threatening half the world's population. Can you imagine? If it's that bad today, think about how bad it was back then.”

Marissa put the magazine back into her bag and pulled out a small reporter’s notebook. She flipped a couple of pages and continued.

“Milton was distraught at the death of his beloved and their unborn child. According to a letter Dr. White wrote to the preacher of little Baptist Church down the road, he and the carpenter, a man they called Buddy, had just arrived back at the Big house when Milton stormed out on the front porch in a rampage, yelling that Olemarget had killed his beloved Abigail and their unborn child. With their help, Milton was able to drag Olemargaret out of her room downstairs near the kitchen. She had shot her boys, but Milton wanted to torture them anyway. If his child was being disregarded so cruelly, then so was hers. They drug her out to that big tree out front, the one closest to the house. The doctor and Buddy held Olemarget as Milton strung both boys into one noose and hung them from that lowest branch. He then turned his ire on her. The three men hung her beside the kids. She died looking into their dead eyes.”

Lindsey remembered the vision that Sadie had the night before. It was all true. And it had all happened because of one, tiny little insect. All that suffering, heartache, and death over one damned mosquito! Marissa kept sifting through her notes as Lindsey pondered the irony. They had moved
here
to escape the insects, yet here is where she was bitten, infected, and died.

“The doctor says that he was repulsed by the act and disgusted that he’d taken part in it. He blamed it on having drunk too much. He left town the next day, moved up to Memphis. There’s no record of what happened to Buddy or to the remaining slaves.  A Mrs. Rosalyn Gardner came to visit the Walkers a few days later. “She knew that Abigail was due to deliver soon and was going to come out to offer help with the baby. She wrote in her journal that she found the bloated corpses of the slave and her children hanging from the tree, buzzards pecking at their eye sockets and abdomens. She rushed inside, horrified. The house was empty, she said. But there was the ‘
tell-tale stench of death in the air
.’

“She ran from room to room looking for Abigail or Milton or one of the servants. ‘
There was nary a living soul
,’ she wrote. She finally found Milton lying by Abigail's dead body, his brains splattered on the wall behind him. She rushed back to her home and returned with her husband, two of their servants, and the town preacher.

“The dead were given proper Christian burials. Olemargaret and her boys were buried under the tree while Mr. and Mrs. Walker were buried in the graveyard of St. Peter's down the road. Nothing ever appeared in the newspaper. At least nothing that Darby or I could find. Darby was actually the one who found the journal and the letter.

“All in all, it seems that the whole ordeal was kept fairly quiet. Milton’s younger brother, Robert, took over the plantation in Georgetown. It was destroyed, though, in the earthquake of 1886. Robert died shortly after that, penniless, single, and heirless.

“Retreat House sat vacant for years. Robert had refused to reside in it, even when he was homeless. In 1931, a Rev. James Walter, descendant of the founders of Walterboro, bought the house from the state and fixed it up. According to historical record, he died of a stroke in 1941. The house was left to his nephew, William Grayson. Grayson was never able to take possession of the house as he died a few months later in World War II. But his wife and son – Mildred and Jack Grayson– moved in. Jack went away to college in 1952 and never returned. His mother lived here until she died at the age of 75. The house sat empty for only a couple of months before Jack sold it to the family lawyer, Neil Jones.

“Neil, in turn, gave the house to a Miss. Angela Richards, which is odd because she was not related to him at all. Some thought that he was buying her silence for something. She delivered a baby in the house in 1973 and gave it up for adoption. Oh, how the tongues wagged! They all thought that it was Neil’s baby but she denied it vehemently, saying that Neil was just trying to help her out of a bad situation. Then, Angela left the house to your mom and grandmother. “Most of the people who gossiped about the scandal back then are either dead or have moved on, so not much has been said about the arrival of a new family here at the Marla Rae. But I wouldn’t be surprised if it does come up at some point in time… especially since your mother’s resemblance to Angela is uncanny. It’s obvious that she was the child given up so long ago.”

Lindsey hoped that it didn’t. She wasn’t sure how her mom would handle it. She barely had a hand on the entire situation as it was.

Marissa busied herself by packing her notebooks back into her bag. Eli had been pacing the length of the porch silently; back and forth he squeaked his way across the worn boards. His voice was soft, but it startled both Marissa and Lindsey when he spoke.

“Are there any tales of the home being haunted?”

“Well, there have always been murmurings of the place being haunted, but I think that was just because it was spooky. Until now, I hadn't met anyone who had ever actually been in it. Darby found a number in Mobile, Alabama for Jack Grayson. He was reluctant to talk about the house, but told me that his mother had the house cleansed by two witches shortly after they moved in. There had been something in it that had scratched and tortured Jack. He said Mildred had tried preachers and priests first, but no one believed them. Mildred somehow found these two white witches who were willing to help.

“He said they banished an ‘evil spirit’ from the house and placed a protective ring of salt around it to keep the spirit from returning. But things still happened in the house. Not bad things anymore, but there was still something there, he said. He believes that whatever it was, no matter how benign, drove his mother insane.

“Here’s the interesting thing, though. He knew that Neil had bought the house and then given it away. We let him know that you and your mom had just inherited it… and its inhabitants. He was very hesitant to share his story at first. Do you want to hear what he said?”

“Absolutely,” Lindsey said.

Marissa sat a small, black voice recorder on the porch and hit play. Marissa’s voice asked, “Why did you sell the house? Why not keep it for its tax benefits? Turn it into a tourist attraction or something?”

Jack’s raspy voice echoed into the dusk. “It was just before Christmas back in ’72.Momma had just died and I was left with that place in my lap. I didn’t want it, but the state wouldn’t let me have it burned to the ground because it was ‘historically significant.’ I just wanted to be rid of it. So, I called up the lawyer that had handled momma’s will and asked him to sell it for me.

“I remember standing under that big ‘ol tree at the end of the driveway and staring at that house. The white-washed brick façade, the red gabled roof, the large, evenly spaced windows, and the six large columns with their weathered balustrades looked inviting to the unknowing eye. The rocking chairs on the large board porch, which were in the same place they’d been so many years ago, beckoned you to sit a spell, have a glass of sweet tea, and reminisce about times gone by.

“But I knew better. Hidden deep inside that peaceful image was an unseen evil, evil of which I was unwilling to speak, evil that I wanted left in the dark recesses of the house. I had never told a soul about my traumatic experiences in that house and I wasn’t ready then … nor am I going to now. 

“My momma had lived to be 75-years-old, but her mind had left her years before. I have no doubt that that house was the reason for her insanity.  I hired a live-in nurse to stay with her. Dee Dee told me that right up to the end Momma was ‘sharp as a tack mentally,’ but that she harboured ‘a severe, disabling fear’ of certain parts of that house. She didn’t want anyone to enter certain rooms, so she had nailed two-by-fours over the doors. A month before she died, Dee Dee had been awakened in the middle of the night by a ruckus downstairs. Momma’d taken a hammer to the walls in two of the downstairs bedrooms. Knocked big, gaping holes in the plaster and dropped pieces of burning newspaper them. The fire department managed to stop the fire, but not before quite a bit of damage had been done. That’s why the place had to be renovated.

“I might have been a lot older, a lot greyer, and certainly a lot heavier, but that place still scared the shit out of me. I was like a terrified little kid standing there. I’d sworn I’d never step foot back in it and I didn’t go back on that promise. I didn’t go in to see the damage for myself. I simply gave that crooked lawyer carte blanche on the renovations. He hired a bunch of illegals to do the work because he could pay them under the table. It cost me $25,000 which was a hefty lump of money back then. I’m sure he completely ripped me off, but I didn’t care then and I don’t care now. I would’ve given every penny I had to be rid of that damned place. 

“I knew he’d bought it himself and couldn’t help but laugh at the irony. He’d taken money from me, but I figured he’d get what he had coming to him in the end. That house would get him back.”

“You seem to think the house was dangerous. ‘Evil,’ you just said. Why?” Marissa’s voice interrupted his chuckling.

“No, not the house. The thing inside it. I lived for years being tormented by the demon. My last hours in it were on a hot, August night back in ‘52. I had spent the day fishing down at the estuary and, after handing my catch to Momma, I washed up and headed upstairs. I started cleaning my room and packing for college. I was scheduled to leave by train for Tuscaloosa in three days, you see. I can still hear the zydeco record playing on the boxy record player that sat on my dresser. I could smell the fish frying upstairs and found myself thinking about her hushpuppies and sweet tea.

“When Momma called up that dinner was ready, I walked out of my room and toward the stairs. It was then that I heard the, the … thing behind me. It was panting softly, giggling. The sound was as soft as a whisper on the wind, but still very audible on the silent landing. I hated it when it snuck up on me like that so I quickened my pace. I wanted to get downstairs and away from it. When I lowered my foot on the staircase, it slithered through my legs like a damned old cat looking for attention. I tripped and tumbled down the stairs, bouncing on the hard wood steps and against the spindles of the railing. My breath was knocked out of me when I reached the floor at the bottom.

“This scared me. I hadn’t been harmed in nearly eight years. Oh sure, I’d had the hell scared out of me more than once, but the thing hadn’t physically touched me since the night Momma had those witches come in. Things, it seemed, had changed. Their enchantments must’ve worn off. I could’ve been killed by this latest antic. I thanked God that I was OK.

“Momma fussed  over me, accusing me of being clumsy. When I told her what’d happened, she didn’t believe me. I ran back upstairs, grabbed my trunk and fled the house. I ran from that place with what little I had in my trunk and the cut off shorts and old white undershirt I was wearing. 

“I still remember the sound of that old wooden thing bouncing heavily down each step, how it echoed into the inky night, I remember the  sweet smell of the blossoms on  that magnolia tree laying heavy on the humid air. My only regret in all of it was that I left her behind to fend for herself. I should’ve taken her with me.”

“How did Neil Jones come to take possession of the house?”

“That greedy son of a bitch wanted to place it on the market for $125,000. That was big, big money back then. He was sure that he was going to make a butt-load of money and was livid when I told him to advertise it for a flat $75,000. He had already been spending his seller’s fee in his head, you see. He tried to talk me out of it, but I wanted it gone. The last time I saw him was in my rear-view  mirror. He was standing in this great billowing cloud of debris that had been stirred up as my car swerved toward the main road.

“Two months later, I received a check for $60,000 in the mail. I found that he’d sold it to his cousin for $80,000 and kept the difference. I didn’t care. Let ‘em have it.”