The Family Plot by Cherie Priest
The thought of the trucks gave her pause.
If the weather didn’t let up, they might have problems. The trucks were heavy even when they weren’t loaded down. The roads weren’t paved around the house, and all the turf was slick, soaked grass interspersed with gravel.
A distant grumble of thunder sounded on the far side of the mountain—the first she’d heard so far. It might be a good sign. If the storm was that close, it might pass overnight. If the rain stopped by morning, they might be able to rebury the soldier and strip the copper roof off the carriage house. Dad would be delighted if that was squared away before he arrived.
The phone’s screen went dark again, and this time she let it stay that way. She pulled her pillows over her head and closed her eyes, just in case sleep might take her despite her doubts.
The last thing she remembered was the creak of a door somewhere on the second story, then a soft squeak, and a click. There was rain on the windows, broken and whole alike. Thunder, spilling over the mountain. The whispering scratches of nails on wood.
12
TWO MORE HOURS of sleep were better than no more hours of sleep, but not by much, in Dahlia’s opinion. She was awake at dawn, goddammit all, and she knew if she tried to wring out another hour, she’d only be more miserable for the effort.
She dragged herself out of the bag and carried her stuff upstairs. She needed to pee again, and brush her teeth, and she didn’t want to get dressed with the boys slumbering right beside her. Bobby and Gabe didn’t matter so much—hell, she’d been forced to take baths with Bobby until she was old enough to remember it. But Brad didn’t get a free show.
She set her overnight bag down in the bathroom, and leaned her head around the corner to take a look inside the master bedroom. Apparently a tree branch had broken the bay window sometime during the night. The window seat was soaked, and there was a dark patch of wet wood for a yard or two around it. Everything else looked okay: The wardrobes, the bed frame, and the fixtures remained unmolested by water, and stray ghosts.
A fine, spitting spray still flicked inside through the missing windowpane, but last night’s deluge was over for now. If she was lucky, it’d be completely finished before the day was out. If not, maybe Dad knew somebody with good towing equipment.
It was too early to call him. He wouldn’t be up and moving until eight o’clock at the earliest.
So she did what she set out to do—washed her face, brushed her teeth, and got dressed—successfully killing about twenty minutes. After that, her cell said it was only 7:21, which was still too early to rouse the troops or phone home.
She reconsidered getting the boys up, despite the hour. The sun was creeping across the sky, gray and watery such as it was. They could get to work. The house was huge, and they needed to start on those mantels and surrounds. Seven twenty-one wasn’t such a crazy time to begin. If Andy were there, he’d have had half the first pink bathroom stripped down already. He always liked being up before everyone else, and he had god-awful taste. He would’ve been on Bobby’s side about the tiles.
She pushed his name out of his head, and out of her morning thoughts. There was no good reason for him to be there. He’d almost never worked with her and Daddy—only once in a blue moon, when they were desperate and he was between jobs. No. There wasn’t any room for him here.
She laced up her work boots and chased down an umbrella, then left the house quietly—closing the front door behind herself and not really caring if the boys slept in. It’d be easier to work late into the night than to start this early. Or maybe they’d knock off and go drinking, or find a hotel.
It wasn’t that she didn’t care; it was that she didn’t know. The house might throw a new monkey wrench in their direction, and they’d have to recalibrate their plans. Safer to stay flexible, and rested, and ready.
Two out of three ain’t bad.
She drew her coat tight. It was colder out there, on the porch. Colder than inside, and colder than the day before. It actually felt like autumn for the first time since she’d arrived in Chattanooga.
The umbrella flapped open and she latched it into place. It was blue and white, and enormous—a golf umbrella she’d snagged from her dad’s office ages before. It was almost overkill.
The hike downtown went faster since she’d made it before. She knew where to dodge the rivulets that had turned into rushing streams overnight; and she’d figured out which little roads connected with which bigger, paved roads.
She made it back to the coffeehouse in about fifteen minutes. The girl with opinions on ghosts wasn’t working, which was just as well. Dahlia wasn’t awake enough for idle chatter with strangers. She was barely awake enough to idly surf the Net while she munched slowly on an egg-and-cheese croissant—dodging the baleful, begging eyes of a chubby beagle who’d been leashed by his owner to the next table over.
When she was nearly done, she palmed the last bite of croissant and slipped it to the dog. He smacked his floppy lips and wagged discreetly. His person never looked up from her book.
Up by the front counter, there was a plastic tub on a tray. Dahlia bussed her own table, tossing her trash and putting the plate in the tub, then she turned to the barista, who was checking his e-mail on a phone that looked a lot like hers. She asked, “Hey, there’s a cemetery around here, right?”
He nodded. “Right over there.”
“Over where?”
He led her to the window and pointed. You could see the cemetery’s entrance from the front door.
She thanked him, and composed a text message to the boys back at the house.
Getting breakfast. Back soon. Be ready to go at 9:00. We start with the marble fireplaces.
She hit “send” and set off for the cemetery. It was only a block or two away as the crow flies. She paused when she saw that the grounds didn’t officially open until 8:30; but the gates were wide open regardless, so she sauntered on in, passing an office with all its lights still off. This office was a square stone building so small that you could’ve parked it in the Withrows’ foyer. If it’d been open, she could’ve gone inside and asked for help finding the Withrow plot, but it wasn’t.
On the upside, there was a large bulletin board to the left of the front door—complete with a map. It wasn’t a great map—it’d been blown up from a smaller line-work illustration, and it was difficult to read.
But it was better than nothing.
She stood there in the rain, the umbrella casting a huge, tinted shadow around her. The map was tricky, but if she read it correctly, the Withrows were down toward the front. She checked the general direction over her shoulder and saw a number of expensive-looking, oversized tombstones, and even a handful of vaults. When she looked down another path, she saw more modest graves. According to the Web site, if she went beyond the next few hills, she’d find vast lots of paupers, slaves, orphans, and flu victims. Some had stones, some went without.
She did a quick spot comparison between big names and lot numbers, and, armed with the information she’d swiped from the Web, she set off down a rough-paved road to the east.
“Withrow, Withrow, Withrow,” she muttered, like she could summon them on command.
Simple legwork found them in five minutes, no magic required.
They had a large family monument, classic and tasteful, and no doubt pricey if you weren’t the folks who owned the company. It said, simply, WITHROW, and it was surrounded by smaller stones with more information about who was lying underneath them. Some of the older graves went back to the 1800s. Among the more recent ones was Hazel Withrow, who’d made it all the way to 1969. The lack of a nearby spouse or an additional surname implied she’d never married. Augusta’s parents were right behind her, having died together on the same day, in that car wreck.
“Hello, Buddy,” she said. “And Hazel. And um … everybody else.”
Except Abigail. There was no sign of her. Now Dahlia had the photo, Augusta’s lore, and the briefcase with the sanit
“Where are you, Abigail?” she asked the plot at large, but it wasn’t like thinking out loud inside the mansion, where you might expect a reply. Her gut said she knew the answer anyway, but her gut was a big fat liar. Her gut had told her if she married Andy, he’d settle down. Her gut had told her—
Never mind.
She threw up her hands, and the umbrella dumped extra spray onto the nearest stones. “I guess it’s just a fucking mystery,” she announced to no one in particular, then turned and headed back out of the cemetery, past the hogback ridge, up the side of Lookout Mountain, and back to the Withrow house.
By the time she trudged past the stone gateposts, it was almost eight thirty. The guys ought to be up and dressed, if not entirely ready to engage with power tools, but when she arrived inside, they were still staggering around like zombies. Gabe was upstairs taking a quick morning shower with the door open, steam spilling out into the hallway. Brad was groggily eating cereal in the kitchen, and Bobby was starting on the day’s first beer.
He must’ve brought it back last night, because there hadn’t been any in the fridge, that Dahlia knew of. She couldn’t bring herself to get too worked up about it. Let him have a beer. God knew she wanted one. She thought about asking, but restrained herself—beer and coffee for breakfast, she’d be peeing all damn day.
“Good morning, boys.”
She got a low grumble of acknowledgment from both, followed by a belch from Bobby. “You didn’t bring any coffee?”
“I took a detour on the way back. It would’ve gotten cold. And you never drink it, so what do you care?”
“Where’d you go?” he asked, exactly as apathetic about the oversight as he ought to be.
She pulled a seat up to the kitchen bar near Brad. “I went to the cemetery across the ridge. I found the Withrow plot.”
Brad brightened, and swallowed a mouthful of cornflakes. “And?”
“And … everybody’s there except for Abigail. I think she’s the big bad ghost who’s been bothering everyone in the bathroom, so I’ve been trying to piece together what happened to her between the time she came back here and the time she vanished from the family record.”
Bobby burped again, and the room smelled sour. “Obviously, she must’ve died.”
“Yeah, but when? And how? Your son,” she pointed at her cousin, “thinks they might’ve locked her in the attic.”
“A madwoman in the attic,” Brad mumbled. “Isn’t anybody tired of that one, yet?”
“Anyway, that’s not what happened to her.” Dahlia told them about finding the satchel with the sanitarium records. She concluded, “They sent her away, but she was discharged, and she came back here, and must have died here. So why isn’t she buried with the rest of the family?”
Bobby wasn’t so sure. “You’re hopping around a lot, making a bunch of assumptions.”
“Eh.” She waved her hand in his directions. “I have circumstantial evidence on my side. The only question is how she died.”
“And why. And where she is now,” Brad insisted. “Those are also questions.”
They all went quiet. They were probably all thinking the same thing, but it was Brad who said it out loud: “She might be buried in that little cemetery.”
Dahlia scooted her chair back, and pushed it out of the way. She refused to indulge the idea, no matter what her gut said. “Too bad we’ll never know.”
“We could…,” Brad began.
“No. We couldn’t. We have an epic shit-ton of work to do today, so there won’t be any time for any further grave robbing, thank God. We still have to rebury the soldier, for heaven’s sake. Besides, I don’t think the weather’s going to hold. Except for some quality shovel time for you, Brad, the rest of the work stays indoors.”
Bobby glanced out the kitchen window. “It’s not raining half so bad as it was last night.”
She checked the weather app on her phone, and turned the screen around to show him. “The radar says we’re in for a beating over the next couple of days.”
Gabe appeared in the kitchen entryway, rubbing his head with a towel. “What about Uncle Chuck?”
“What about him?” Bobby asked, finishing off the beer and tossing the bottle into the trash. “He can’t control the weather.”
“But he’s still coming tomorrow, right?”
“No, not until Friday, unless…” She scrolled around on her phone, and saw that the forecast was even worse for Friday. “Hm. I don’t know. We can get most of the house done before bedtime today, between us. If we can get Daddy to come down tomorrow, I bet he can help us wrap up a day early.”
Brad leaned back to take a peek at her phone. “How bad does it look?”
“There’s a storm front headed right for us. Tell you what, I’ll give him a call and see how he wants to play it. The rest of y’all, get your asses in gear. I won’t be a minute. Knowing him, he probably won’t pick up.”
She left the kitchen for the communal living area, then climbed the stairs, as if she needed some privacy. She didn’t, but she took it anyway. As predicted, Chuck didn’t answer. No great shock. Half the time he didn’t hear his phone, and half the time he forgot to carry it. She left him a message.
“Hey Daddy, it’s me. I know you planned to show up on Friday, but I was wondering if you couldn’t drive down tomorrow instead. The weather is going to get bad tonight, and worse tomorrow. We may have to skip some of the house’s exterior stuff, but we’ll still have a hell of a haul, I promise. This was a good buy, and it’ll pay off—even without the bay windows and whatnot, so don’t worry about that. Anyway, call me, would you? We should talk. You should come out tomorrow.” She paused, and then said quickly, “We’re all tired of camping here at this crazy-ass house, and we want to come home.”
She ended the call, and put the phone in her back pocket.
A dull drone in the background turned out to be the rain kicking up again. She strolled to the broken hallway window and stood in the spray of water and chilly air that splattered through the jagged pane of glass. There was no dead soldier standing in the cemetery below; just a tarp weighted down by rocks, covering the spot where he’d been laid to rest in a shallow grave under someone else’s headstone.
“Were you Abigail’s first lover? What happened to you?”
The house didn’t answer, and neither did any helpful ghost.
With that thought, she turned around—and saw that Hazel’s door was closed again. The trunk that’d held it propped open was now sitting outside, in the hall. Dahlia approached it, and nudged it aside with her foot. It was heavy, but it moved. The lovely doorknob wiggled, but didn’t turn. Hazel had locked her out again.
“I’ve got to get in there someday, Aunt Hazel,” Dahlia said to the closed room. “Please don’t make me destroy this door to do it. I’d rather not ruin anything I don’t have to,” she said under her breath. But when she thought about it, and tested the sound of the words again, she wasn’t so certain. “I wish we could save this house…” didn’t taste right anymore. She tried again. “Fine, the house can go to hell. But you seem all right, Aunt Hazel. I apologize to you for everything that’s coming. I’ve already apologized to the house, but if you’re hanging around, and if you still care for the place, then you get an apology, too. That’s literally all I can do for you, now. If Daddy were here, he’d say it’s more than I ought to do.”
She looked down at the trunk, pushed out into the hall where it clogged the thoroughfare. One heavy corner had shoved up against the rotted carpet runner, and torn a great hole in it—leaving a drag mark in the old boards beneath.
She bent down to open it again and examine the contents in daylight. The flimsy old latch hadn’t mysteriously locked since last night, so that was something. Not everything closed for good when you looked away.
This time, she saw the same paperbacks as before. And something else.
Atop the jumbl
My dearest Gregory, I want you to know that I’m yours, every inch of me—but my father’s starting to wonder, and I fear he will give you grief when you come to get me …
The handwriting was slender and tidy, and very precise. The words were composed in pen, but the letters had faded to the off-brown color so very common to old missives, courtesy of all the iron in the ink.
Dahlia closed the trunk lid and sat down on top of it.
… not our type, as Mother puts it, but how would she know? She does not see the best parts of you, as I do. If Father were not in the way, I think she might come around, in time. But you know she’ll never stand against him. No one ever does, not even Hazel—who is quite fond of you, and thinks that you and I would make a very nice match. That’s how she put it, when I pressed her on the matter. She’s concerned for me. For both of us, I’m sure.
But this is not the time to dally. Time is running short, and in this case, we must risk asking forgiveness, instead of permission. You know as well as I do, that we must risk it soon. Come another few weeks, and people will be counting the months since our honeymoon, and raising their eyebrows high.
“Dahl? What are you doing?”
Gabe. She hadn’t heard him come up the stairs, nor down the hall, nor to the spot where he was now standing over her shoulder, but he hadn’t startled her, not exactly.
She looked up and gently waved the old paper. “Aunt Hazel locked us out again, but she left a little present.” She pointed to the signature at the bottom on the back side. “Abigail’s love letters to Gregory.”