Unbreakable (21 page)

“I love you too,” I return his kiss.

“I love you too, Lilly,” Jacob chimes in,
and when I look his way he has a cheesy smile on his face which
makes me laugh. “Okay, now that everyone loves everyone again, I
would like to do some damage to these locks,” he says with bolt
cutters in one hand and a lock saw in the other. “Let’s do some
breaking in.” He winks at me and turns to Luke handing him the
saw.

Chapter 25

Wanting to get away from the loud screeching
of the metal being cut, Emma and I walk along the brick wall wading
through the weeds. “I hope we find some answers today,” I tell her
as we see a hollow section of the wall. It’s a little window. We
take turns looking in, but really can’t see anything through the
overgrowth.

We’ve walked for about twenty minutes when
we decide we’re not getting anywhere and decide to turn back. As we
get closer to the gate, we hear the guys yelling that there in. We
start a slow jog to get there faster. When we reach the driveway,
Luke and Jacob are already in the truck and motioning us to hurry
up. Emma and I jump in the bed of the truck and sit on the edge as
Luke’s starts driving down the lane.

It’s very eerie with the tall bald cypress
trees lining the lane. Their large bases almost touch one another
and silvery grey moss hangs from the limbs that reach so high only
a few beams of sunlight can make it through.

Luke drives slowly so we can look around as
we go. I see the top of some building off to the left of the lane.
The grass and weeds have over taken whatever it is. “Maybe it’s a
shed,” I tell Emma pointing toward it. The closer we get to the
house the creepier it gets. All the windows are boarded up and the
paint’s peeling off the wood. There’s a huge front porch with a
swing, one side is hanging down with the chain broken. Luke pulls
up to front of the house and we all hop out.

All of us stand there in a row staring at
the huge mansion. Why would daddy let this place rot like this?
This plantation is huge, one of the bigger ones. He would’ve made a
lot of money from it.

Luke and Jacob make their way up to the huge
front double doors. They are padlocked also. As they start working
on it, Emma and I walk around toward the back of the house. It’s a
very typical southern plantation as far as I can tell. At the back
of the house we stand on a stone patio taking it all in. Whatever
is out on the grounds we can’t see because of the grass and weeds
being so high. We hear the back door rattle, and jump back
startled. The door opens revealing Luke and Jacob standing in the
doorway.

The first thing I notice when I enter the
house is the smell, it’s a musty smell. It is very dark, but some
cracks in the boarded up windows lets in enough light that we can
see. Luke hands out flashlights to all of us and we start to look
around. The kitchen is very large, larger than ours at home. It has
beautiful marble counter tops and deep brown pecan cabinets. I run
my fingers along the cool marble leaving imprints in the thick dust
that covers it as I go. I open one of the cabinets and see that it
still holds its contents. The fridge and stove look more than 30
years old. There’s a big kitchen table with 8 chairs around it in
the center of the room.

An oversized formal dining
room is off the kitchen with an enormous wooden dining room table.
It has 12 chairs seated around it, each one big and bulky with very
thick carved legs. A massive matching armoire sits against the wall
with
Cypress Grove James Family Plantation
est. 1856
etched into its glass
doors with the most beautiful etching of a
Cypress tree under the writing. I open one of the doors and see
that there is a full set of fancy fine china still neatly stacked.
I pick up one of the plates and study it. They’re royal blue with
the same writing as the doors and the same cypress tree inlayed in
silver.

“Those are beautiful,” Emma says standing
next to me. I turn over the piece and also inlayed in silver it
reads Royal Doulton 1864.

“It’s very old,” I notice, Luke standing
next to me now looking at it also. “It’s like the house was just
left, they didn’t move anything out,” I say looking at Luke and
Emma.

“Preserved in time almost,” Emma nods in
agreement. “Why would your dad do this?” She looks at me still
holding the fine china in my hand. I place it gently back in the
armoire and shut the glass door.

Walking into the front room, there is still
a couch and a couple chairs covered by sheets with layers of dust.
Off the front room is a large study. In the middle is a wooden desk
and beside it is a file cabinet. There’s a floor to ceiling
bookshelf against one wall and the shelves are lined completely
full of books. Jacob walks up to it and shines his flashlight
scanning the books. He grabs one of the books and looks over at us
as after he reads the title of the book.

“What is it?” Emma says walking over to him.
“Incantations and Spells,” Emma reads the front. Luke and I join
them as she places the book on the dust covered desk.

“It’s more like a journal,” I say as I open
the book and seeing it is all hand written and looks very old. The
pages are yellowed and brittle. There are two names scribbled on
the inside cover. The writing is in old cursive and is hard to read
as Emma and I shine our flashlights on it.

Ceila Bellevue
is, the first name written and under it is
another name with an inscription.

I love you sweet mamma,
January C. James

Emma and I look at each other after we read
the inscription. There’s a crinkled black and white photo taped
underneath the names of a beautiful woman and a little girl. The
woman is pregnant and the little girl is holding her momma’s hand
looking up at her with a huge smile. There’s an “x” scratched
roughly over the belly of the woman. Like someone was trying to
erase the pregnant belly in the picture. I stare at the woman, her
eyes warm and her hair long and flowing. She’s the most beautiful
woman I have ever seen.

“
She almost looks like you,” Emma says standing next to me
shinning her flashlight at the picture.

“No, she is amazingly gorgeous,” I remark
thinking that I look nothing like that.

“So are you,” Luke says now standing on the
other side of me. “She does look like you,” he states leaning down
studying the picture. “What’s with the scratches though, someone
did not like the baby I take it,” he says rubbing his finger over
the woman’s belly where it has been scratched.

I can’t help but think of the article from
daddy’s safe about the woman who had been burned and had recently
given birth.

“You don’t suppose that is Samantha, do
you?” Emma says softly, saying what we are all thinking. “She does
look a lot like you. I could see someone mistaking you for her,”
she continues. Jacob has now joined us and we all stare at the
picture. No one says anything for the next few minutes. You could
hear a pin drop in the room.

“Who’s the little girl then? That is
definitely not you,” Jacob says, “but it is uncanny how much that
woman does look like you, Lil. She has to be related to you
somehow,” he says leaning in closer to look at the picture.

“Well my guess is that the
woman is Ceila,” I say pointing to the first name, “The little girl
is January.” I run my finger down to the writing. “So whether she
is related to me or not, I don’t know, but I am taking this book
with me. That much I do know.” I start to flip through the pages of
the book and Emma stops me on a certain page
.

“Look, a love spell,” Emma says reading one
of the pages.

To make him love
you:

Dried
Orris Root

Cypress oil

Rose
Oil

Light
candle and drip wax in a circle. Mix oils and root

Recite
7 times

I call
thee, beloved one,

To
love me more than anyone

Seven
times I prick my heart

I bind
thee heart and soul to me

As I
do, so let it be

There are pages and pages of hand written
spells. Some are so faded you can’t make out any words.

“There are more of them,” Luke says now
joining Jacob back at the book shelf shining the lights and
scanning the shelves. Emma and I join them.

Hoodoo Lore

The Rider’s Grimoire

Loas of the Crossroads

Rituals of Gris Gris

These are just some of the books that line
the shelves.

I pull The Rider’s Grimoire off the self and
sit on the floor. Placing the book in my lap, I open it and shine
my flashlight on the yellowed pages.

The first page explains of the crossroads as
being the juncture of powerful energies. That by having the Grimier
you will be protected from your enemies. I notice that there is a
folded page that is sticking out a little at the top. Jacob, Luke,
and Emma are standing around me, all of their flashlights beaming
down on the book. I grab the top of the book and open it to the
folded page.

It is a page that had been ripped from this
same book and folded over once, but I can tell it had been folded
down much smaller at one point. It’s very fragile and I’m careful
as I unfold the crinkly piece of paper.

It’s hard to read from all of the creases,
but I am able to make out most of it and I read it aloud to
everyone:

How to get rid of an
enemy:

To Summon “the rider” you
must bury a silver coin at the crossroads. Bury it at the very
center of where the roads cross. This must be done at exactly
midnight on the fifth day of the fifth month.

Stand on the southwest
corner of where the roads meet and recite your enemy’s name 5
times. “The rider” shall appear before you. You must not look in
his eyes until he invites you to do so.

“The rider” must do as you
wish, but at a great price. Negotiations shall take place, as he
will choose the proper payment for your request. The deal must be
made, there is no turning back. If you should try and break the
deal, a human sacrifice will have to be made to save your
life.

Beware to all those who
wish to summon “the rider.” Proceed with most fear and
caution.

“I don’t like this, Lilly,” Jacob says.
Knowing how he feels about this stuff I am sure his skin is
crawling right now. “All of this is some sort of black magic."

“Jacob’s right, this is super creepy,” Emma
says, which surprises me since she is the one who has wanted to get
into all of the voodoo stuff. “Let’s keep searching,” she says and
I can tell she is ready to leave the room.

Luke opens the file cabinet and looks up at
us. “It’s empty,” he says. “Everything else in the house is still
in its place, but the one thing that might give us answers is
empty. Go figure,” he says. It’s obvious he is frustrated when he
slams the file cabinet drawer shut.

I grab the Grimoire Crossroads book and the
Incantations and Spells book wanting to take them with me. I wrap
them in my arms as we leave the room.

Chapter 26

We make our way to the front foyer. There’s
a grand stairway in the center of the room and halfway up it is a
large landing where the stairs split. One goes to the left and the
other to the right.

Luke takes my hand and murmurs, “Let’s check
it out.” He gently pulls me up the stairs with him. Emma and Jacob
follow. No one says anything, we take it all in. We reach the
landing and Luke stops motioning with his hand, “Which way
first?”

I head to the right and walk up into the
hallway.

We step into the first room and it’s a
smaller bedroom. All of them on this side are smaller and nothing
special. A couple of them still have beds in them and meek little
dressers. There are four in this hallway along with two small
bathrooms on either side of the hall. Towards the back of the hall
there is a very large linen closet. White sheets covered in dust
still line the shelves. There is a back stairway that Jacob runs
down real fast returning a minute later.

“It goes to the laundry room and the back of
the kitchen,” he explains and we all know what that means. This was
the servant’s hall back in the day. The servants and slaves were
all live in, but they usually were not in the house. Most of the
time, they lived in small buildings outside away from the main
house.

More compassionate owners would actually
allow their help inside. It was barely heard of and the James
Family must have been one of the few that treated their help as
humans.

“Well, let’s try the other side,” Emma says
walking back to the grand stairway.

As we reach the top of the left side, we can
tell instantly that the right side was obviously the servant’s
hall.

The hallway on this side is much larger with
more ornate woodworking. The first room we enter is huge, so it
must be the master. A very large four-poster bed still remains in
the room. The pedestals are at least three feet in circumference
with majestic carvings all the way up to the top. One side of the
room has a very large walk in closet. The other side has an
enormous master bath. There’s an immense sunken tub and a separate
shower that is very large.

“This is amazing,” Emma exclaims. “It just
makes it all that much more confusing though. Why did Ted board
this place up?”

“That’s the million dollar question,” I
respond. “I would love some answers myself.”