Mimosa Grove (4 page)

Like the bird, Laurel took a nervous step back, not quite sure if the warning was meant for her or the peacock. Moments later, the peacock gave one last shriek, which set the hair on the backs of Laurel’s arms on end, then moved away in slow, elegant steps, its long, multicolored tail now dragging behind in grand, sweeping motions.

Now that the bird was gone, Laurel found herself motionless beneath the woman’s dark, piercing stare.

“Hello. I’m Laurel Scanlon. Marcella’s lawyer sent me a letter about—”

“You didn’t look much like Phoebe when you was little. You still don’t. Look more like Chantelle herself, I think.”

Laurel’s mouth dropped open. She knew, because she felt air moving between her teeth, but for the life of her, she couldn’t find the will to close it. Mesmerized by the intensity of the little woman’s dark stare, she stood, waiting for whatever came next.

“Yeah, like Chantelle,” the old woman muttered, then reached forward, first touching the dark copper strands of Laurel’s hair, then running the back of her forefinger down the side of Laurel’s cheek.

“So,” the old woman said. “You came.” Then she nodded approvingly. “Marcella said you would. I should have known better than to doubt her words. Come. Come. You must be exhausted.”

All the breath went out of Laurel in one instant. Until the old woman had mentioned it, she hadn’t realized how tired she really was. Still, she needed clarification of a few simple facts.

“Are you Marie?”

A wide smile shifted the wrinkles on her face.

“You remember me?”

Laurel was embarrassed. “No, I’m sorry to say I do not. But I met a woman named Tula back in Bayou Jean who mentioned your name.”

Marie nodded. “Ah, yes…Tula. She and Miz Marcella grew up together. Friends from way back, you know.”

Laurel nodded. “I gathered as much.” She hesitated, then had to ask. “Marie…the people here—”

“What about them?” Marie asked.

Laurel wasn’t sure how to approach the subject.

“Speak up, girl,” Marie said. “You never learn answers if you don’t ask questions.”

“When the people I saw in Bayou Jean learned I was Marcella’s granddaughter, they seemed pleased.”

“But of course,” Marie said. “What else would they be?”

“But they had to know she was…that she could—”

“You mean, did they know she had the sight? But of course! Over the years, many came for help. She turned no one away.”

Laurel shook her head in disbelief. “Somebody pinch me or I’m going to think I’ve just died and gone to heaven.”

Marie frowned. “This is not so where you come from?”

“Hardly,” Laurel said.

Marie shrugged and then tugged gently at Laurel’s wrist.

“So it is good you are here, yes? Now come. You must be tired. Your room is ready, and when you have rested, we will have supper.”

“Wait,” Laurel said. “I need to get my bags.”

“No…no, this I will do for you.”

“But, I—”

“It is my job. It is my honor,” Marie said. “Now, no more arguments.”

Laurel could tell it would not be wise to mention that she was far more capable of carrying luggage than a woman of Marie’s age, so she did as she was told and followed her inside.

The moment Laurel stepped into the foyer and saw the grand staircase curving upward to the second-, then the third-floor landings, she had a feeling of déjà vu. She looked down at the pink-marble flooring and then up at the flocked but fading designs on the wine-colored wallpaper and could remember playing jacks in a corner of the foyer and hearing her mother’s laughter nearby. From where she was standing, she could see into two different rooms, and both appeared to have been furnished with pieces straight out of a museum. Moments later, the door swung shut behind her. The thud echoed within the three-story foyer like a shot. Even though she knew it had been nothing but a draft that made the door swing shut, she had to shake off the feeling of having been entombed.

“Welcome to Mimosa Grove,” Marie said, then added, “Welcome home. You come this way to your rooms.”

Laurel felt a ridiculous urge to cry. If only this place would be the home she’d never had. Then she realized Marie was already halfway up the staircase and hurried to follow.

Almost immediately, she was struck by a faint feeling of despair. The farther up she went, the stronger the emotion became. A few steps shy of the first landing, she was forced to stop. She grabbed onto the stair rail and closed her eyes, physically unable to move any farther.

The house was silent, only the sound of her own breathing could be heard, and yet the sobs of a woman were vivid in her ears. At that point she was wondering if she’d made a mistake in coming and toyed with the thought of returning shamefaced to her father. Within seconds of the thought the crying stopped, and she felt as if she was being urgently begged to stay.

Suddenly Marie was at her side, her bony fingers curling around Laurel’s wrist.

“Tell her who you are and then say a prayer for her,” she said swiftly. “Say it now.”

Laurel’s legs went weak. “Say a prayer?”

Marie nodded briefly. “
Oui,
quickly now,” she urged.

“For whom?” Laurel asked.

“For the lost soul,” Marie said.

Ignoring the ridiculousness of the order and accepting that she was out of her element in this strange but wonderful place, Laurel did as she’d been told.

“I’m Laurel, Marcella’s granddaughter,” she whispered, and heard the fear in her own voice. Then she began to murmur, asking God for forgiveness and blessings for any and all who lingered here, beseeching those who were lost to go toward the light.

Almost immediately, the heaviness that had weighed on her heart was gone. She opened her eyes and then started to shake. Marie was still standing at her side, still clutching her wrist.

“My God!” Laurel asked. “What just happened?”

Marie shrugged. “I am sorry. I should have told you sooner. It won’t happen again, now that the house knows who you are.”

The skin on the back of Laurel’s neck began to crawl, as if plagued by a thousand tiny ants.

“What do you mean, now that the house knows?”

Again Marie shrugged. “Forgive me…that was a poor choice of words. But Mimosa Grove is old, and with age come eccentricities. She has seen much happiness…and much sadness in her time. Even though physical bodies of previous residents no longer exist, the echoes of their laughter and grief are still here for those who are sensitive enough to feel. I should have thought to warn you.” Then she smiled, and the action shifted a thousand wrinkles on her face into new positions. “Like Mimosa Grove, I, too, suffer a lapse now and then.”

Laurel tried to smile back, but she was too shocked to speak.

“You come now,” Marie urged. “Lie down for just a bit. I’ll call you when it’s time for the evening meal.”

Laurel let herself be led up the stairs, then down the hall, as if she were a child. It wasn’t until Marie pushed a door open and stepped aside that Laurel found her voice again.

“These will be your rooms,” Marie said. “Your grandmother enjoyed them. It is good that they will be occupied again.”

Too startled to hide her dismay, Laurel took a small step back.

“These were my grandmother’s rooms?”

Marie nodded.

Laurel shivered. She could hear the panic in her voice but couldn’t stop herself from asking, “Please, I’d rather stay somewhere else.”

Marie frowned and then shook her head.

“But no, my dear. Marcella would be so pleased that you are here. Besides, the other rooms are not fit for habitation.”

Then she shrugged, as if to say the discussion was over, put her hand in the middle of Laurel’s back and gently pushed her forward.

Laurel shivered as she entered the rooms, eyeing the dark burgundy upholstery fabric and the even darker mahogany paneling on the walls. The sagging drapes at the windows had been hanging so long that the colors of the paisley print had long since been bleached by the sun. And yet, as depressing as the rooms should have been, almost immediately upon entering, the anxious emotions Laurel had been experiencing disappeared.

“In here is the bedroom,
ma petite,
and the bath just beyond. Mimosa Grove is ancient, but her accommodations are not. Miz Marcella had the plumbing redone a few years ago, and all is as it should be. You will be much at home here, as she was, yes?”

Laurel nodded, then turned to Marie with a smile.

“Yes, this is wonderful.”

Marie’s smile widened. “I knew it would be so.” Then she gestured toward the bed in the adjoining room. “For now, you rest. I will call you for the evening meal.”

The bed looked soft and inviting, and the linens carried the scents of both wisteria and fresh air. With the exhaustion of travel and the unexpected connections she’d experienced from unsettled spirits, there was nothing left in Laurel with which to argue.

She nodded once, then stepped out of her shoes and crawled onto the bed. By the time Marie returned with the bags and a bouquet of fresh flowers for the writing table in the sitting room, Laurel was fast asleep.

J
ustin Bouvier logged off the computer in his office, then leaned back in his chair and combed his fingers through his hair. If he’d still been in New York, he would have gone for a massage at the gym before going home to dinner. But the only people giving massages in Bayou Jean were the Gatlin girls, and their idea of a massage could get him arrested.

He got up from his chair and walked out of the office, ignoring the active screens of the other two computers. The stock market was closed, so it was time to relax. If he’d wanted to live his life making money twenty-four hours a day, he would have stayed in New York.

He took a cold bottle of lager from the fridge, popped the cap and took the first drink. The chill of the amber liquid and the tang of hops on his tongue hit the spot. He ambled into the living room, flopped down in his father’s favorite recliner and then slung his right leg over the arm as he turned on the TV. Almost immediately and out of habit, he shifted his sitting position to a more proper one and, not for the first time, wished his parents were still alive to tell him to sit up straight and quit slouching.

His sigh was more regret rather than weariness as he flipped the channels, intent on catching the national news. It had been four years since he’d walked out on Wall Street to come home and care for his ailing parents. They’d died within months of each other, leaving him free to return to that high-paying, high-powered job. But for reasons he had yet to identify, he hadn’t gone back. Now, three and a half years later, he was still here. The fact that there were enough residents in Bayou Jean who were interested in mutual funds and stock market investments still surprised him, but he’d come to believe that nothing happened by accident.

About a month after he’d buried his last parent, the president of the local bank had passed away. Less than a week later, Marcella Campion had approached him and asked if he was interested in taking over her portfolio. He’d done it as a favor to his mother’s old friend, then, before the year was out, he had acquired ten other clients. Between the money he made from them and the income derived from his own investments, he was sitting pretty without the hassle of a big city. The only thing lacking in his life was purpose. Living his life in the pursuit of fortune seemed a bit empty without a woman to share it with. God knows his life was lonely. And while he could have settled for any one of a number of single young locals, he wanted the life his parents had enjoyed. He wanted a wife for life, not just a partner in bed, and he had yet to fall in love. Then he thought about the woman he’d been dreaming of and frowned. If only she were real, he would be a happy man. As he sat there, it dawned on him that she’d been absent from his dreams for the past two nights. His pulse rocked slightly, then stuttered back into a normal rhythm. What if she was gone? What if she never came back?

Sighing in disgust at his flights of fancy, he took another drink and decided he was losing his mind. Weary of his own company all the way to his soul, he upped the volume on the television just in time to hear an update on the growing scandal coming out of Washington, D.C.

He shook his head, listening in disbelief as the news anchor began repeating what they’d learned about a well-to-do D.C. local who’d been arrested for selling military secrets to numerous enemies of the United States. But that wasn’t the biggest hook to the story. Discovering that the local, Peter McNamara, was really a man named Dimitri Chorkin, a Soviet spy who’d been planted in the United States years ago, had caused a horrible backlash between the American and Russian governments. Despite the Russian president’s reassurance that Chorkin was a man whose existence had been overlooked and forgotten by the old hard-liners and unknown to the new democratic presence in their nation’s capital, the implications of his existence were causing enough repercussions to resurrect the Cold War.

Justin stared at the man’s picture on the screen. He looked so ordinary—so like someone who might live next door. He thought of how much he’d adored his parents and wondered how someone could give up homeland, family and friends to live a lie in a country that was not one’s own, never mind the added danger of being a spy.

Then a series of rapid knocks sounded at his door, and the national news and Dimitri Chorkin were forgotten as he hurried to answer.

It had been less than forty-eight hours since Laurel’s arrival at Mimosa Grove, but she felt like she’d lived there forever. She’d returned the rental car and was having Marcella’s Chrysler detailed and inspected by a local who’d given her a cold bottle of Coke and a ride home, then gladly offered to bring it out to her when he was done.

The friendliness was so heartwarming and so unexpected that she was doing something she’d never done before—letting down her guard.

The memories of the falsely cordial lifestyle she’d lived in Washington, D.C., were fading by the hour. The longer she was here, the more familiar her surroundings became. What had appeared strange and foreboding upon arrival now welcomed her—except, of course, Elvis the peacock, so named for his flashy garb and macho attitude. Despite all Laurel’s good intentions and offers of special treats, the young peacock would have none of her and continued to challenge her at every turn. Marie laughed aloud each time Laurel exited the house, watching with unfeigned delight as the young woman tried to make peace with the big bird.

With a small bag of sunflower seeds in her hand and determination in every step, Laurel sneaked out the back of the mansion, intent on taking a walk. But to do that, she had to get past Elvis without losing face again. It didn’t strike her as the least bit odd that while she took spirits and visions as a matter of course, she was in danger of losing her cool with what amounted to a turkey in drag.

Marie LeFleur was right behind her, eyeing the tall, leggy redhead who was Marcella’s granddaughter and shaking her head in disapproval at the bright blue spandex bike shorts and red sports bra she was wearing. Mimosa Grove had never seen anything like Laurel Scanlon. Then she smiled to herself. Maybe that was what the old place needed. New blood. She would love to be able to live long enough to know joy and laughter in this place again before she died.

“It gonna rain before dark,” Marie warned as Laurel stepped off the back porch, then stopped to retie the laces of one of her tennis shoes.

“I’m not going far,” Laurel said. “I just want a little fresh air. I’m used to a daily workout at the gym, and while it’s nice to be a little bit lazy, I don’t want to get too out of shape.”

Marie frowned. “Your shape just fine like it is,” she said, eyeing Laurel’s lush curves. “You built like your mama, who got her height from Etienne.”

Laurel stopped and turned. “Etienne?”

Marie clucked her tongue in disapproval. “Girl, you don’t know nothin’, do you? Your papa should be ashamed of hisself for keepin’ you away from your family. Etienne was your grandpapa.”

“Mother never once mentioned him,” Laurel said. “Why is that?”

Marie crossed herself, then shrugged. “You were little when she started getting sick. Besides that, he died a month before she was born. She never knew him, so I guess talkin’ about him to her baby girl didn’t seem important.”

“How sad,” Laurel murmured. “What happened to him?”

“He died during World War II on a beach in a place they called Normandy. Miz Marcella knew the moment he died. Swore she felt his spirit pass through her body on his way to heaven. Everyone thought she was just nervous about her man being gone when she gave birth to their first child, but they kept their opinions to themselves after she got that telegram. By the time the army shipped his body home, your mama had been born. We interred his body and had Phoebe’s christening service at the same time.” She frowned, remembering the sadness accompanying the memory. “Your grandmama…she wasn’t one for waste. The parish priest had come all this way to bury Etienne, she thought he might as well christen their baby while he was at it.”

“She was tough, wasn’t she?” Laurel said.

Marie laughed aloud. “Lord, yes.”

Laurel sighed. “It’s unfortunate I didn’t inherit some of her guts. I might have fared better in D.C. if I hadn’t been so worried about what everyone was thinking of me.”

“No matter,” Marie said. “You here now. Everything gonna be all right.”

Laurel eyed the overgrown shrubbery she was going to have to pass to get to the mimosa grove and frowned.

“Not unless I make peace with Elvis,” she muttered, then looked back at Marie. “How come I’m the only person he doesn’t like?”

“Who knows what’s on that bird’s mind?” Marie muttered. “Remember, honey. It may have feathers, but it’s still a male, and I ain’t seen one yet worth his salt who could walk and chew gum at the same time.”

Laurel laughed aloud.

“What would my grandmother have done…about the bird, I mean?”

Marie’s laughter echoed as she slapped her leg.

“Probably figured out a way to make peacock pie.”

Laurel grinned. “Well, he looks too tough to eat, so I guess I’ll just practice my sprints and hope for the best.”

Marie was still chuckling as she went back inside, leaving Laurel to deal with the problem alone.

Laurel glanced into the thickets, making a mental note to hire someone to help restore the landscaping, and started off on her walk. Before she’d gone fifty feet, Elvis glided down on outspread wings from a nearby tree. He landed between her and the mimosa grove, fanned his tail, then began to strut back and forth, blocking Laurel’s path with an intimidating series of shrieks.

“Elvis, darling,” Laurel cooed. “Look what I have for you.”

She dug into the small bag and pulled out some sunflower seeds, then tossed them on the ground between them.

Elvis might as well have been blind for all the attention he paid to Laurel’s seedy bribe.

“Fine, then,” she said, and started walking again, telling herself that it would be all right, that this RuPaul of the bird world was nothing but a bunch of noise and feathers, and that there was nothing to be afraid of.

But the moment she moved, the bird gave chase. In a panic, she threw the sunflower seeds toward him, sack and all, and began to run. She didn’t look back, but she thought she could hear Marie’s laughter as she sprinted into the trees.

Entering the grove was like entering another world. The humidity in the air seemed thicker. Moisture gathered on the leaves, only to drip on Laurel’s head and shoulders as she passed beneath the trees. The ground was littered with the fallen pink-and-white blooms, carpeting the floor of the grove in an exotic pseudo-Persian pattern.

Every now and then a parrot would swoop across her line of vision in a startling flight of color and sound on its way to somewhere else. The rackety sound of cicadas blended with the intermittent croaks of tiny tree frogs, reminding her of Marie’s warning that it was going to rain.

Intent on getting a little exercise before being shut in for the night with the storm, she took a moment to orient herself within the massive span of trees, then started to jog.

Within minutes, both her hair and clothing were wet, as much from the humidity as from exertion. But it felt good to be working up a good sweat, so she pushed on through the grove, following a faint but distinct path without knowing where it led.

She didn’t know how long she’d been running when she heard the first roll of distant thunder. She paused, her heart pounding, her muscles at the point of burning from the run as she bent over and grabbed her knees, bracing herself as she struggled to catch her breath. There was a slight stitch in her side, and she was mentally chastising herself for not bringing some water, when the thunder rumbled again, only closer. She straightened, swiping away straggling bits of hair that had escaped from her ponytail and now clung to her face, and began to retrace what she thought was the way back to the old mansion.

She hadn’t gone more than a few feet when she looked down.

“Oh, no,” she mumbled, realizing the path on which she was walking was untouched.

She stopped, then turned around to retrace her steps, but she could no longer see the path. The wind was rising, causing blooms and the fernlike leaves alike to fall from the trees in wild abandon. The faster they fell, the more densely the old path was covered.

Her heart skipped a beat.

The storm was almost upon her, and she didn’t have the faintest idea which way to go. The wind was whipping through the trees now, and although the heavy canopy above her head might normally have formed a shelter, she could already feel the first drops of rain upon her face. It wasn’t as if she minded getting wet, but the gathering clouds had sucked up all the light. Between one moment and the next, night had come.

Before she could focus, a bolt of lightning slammed to the ground, shattering the trunk of a tree less than fifty feet behind her. She screamed, then raced forward just as the rain began to fall in earnest.

Not that way.

Immediately, Laurel stopped, her heart hammering against her rib cage, her legs trembling with fear as she made a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree turn. No one was there, yet she’d heard the words as clearly as if the speaker had been standing right behind her.

“Where, then?” she yelled. “Tell me which way to go.”

With the wind at your back.

She spun abruptly and began to run, taking care to keep the force of the storm at her back, letting the wind push her when her legs were too tired to move.

Several minutes passed, and still she could see nothing but rain and the dark, verdant thrashing of storm-tossed limbs. Then, just as suddenly as she had entered the grove, she was out, running across the grounds toward the blessed safety of the old house.

Marie was standing at the back with the door open, waving for her to hurry as Laurel bolted up the steps and all but fell into the kitchen. Her eyes were huge, her heart hammering so hard she could barely hear Marie scolding her for being gone too long. She looked down at the puddle she was making on the old linoleum flooring and started to shake.