Thank you Sammi for helping me flesh out this story. Hugs!

Chapter 1

The rain beat down on the roof of my girlfriend Bailey's car as I kissed her goodbye. My car was in the shop so she had been giving me rides for the last two weeks. I ran to the mailbox to grab the mail. A heavy, parchment paper envelope rested on top. It was addressed to me, Leigha Stone in a very elegant handwritten script. The return address said Magnolia Manor. I shrugged as I noticed the misspelled name. My name is Leigh but the mistake happened often enough that it did not bother me much anymore.

I grabbed the rest of the mail and ran inside. The house was empty so I left my grandparents' mail on the counter and ran upstairs to my room. I bounced down on the full-size bed and opened the envelope. An invitation to a family reunion waited inside. The Forsythe family, my momma's family, the ones I hadn't seen since I was four years old, when my momma killed my daddy, then killed herself.

My computer sat on the desk in the corner, and I ran over to it. Google was my friend. Curiosity had me looking up Magnolia Manor long before now. My Granny and Papa refused to tell me much about that side of the family, but I remembered the name from when I was little. I lived there until I was four, when it all happened. Afterward, my grandparents brought me from Georgia to where my father's parents lived in Tennessee.

A search of Magnolia Manor pulled up their Web site with details about the family reunion. They would be honoring the 150th anniversary of the death of Clarence Forsythe and the disappearance of his daughter and son-in-law, Gabriella and Garrett Gillette. The Magnolia Ball ended the week of events. From what I learned on the Web site, the family reunion was held every year. I wondered how many I had been invited to without even knowing it.

Granny and Papa meant well, but they tried to shield me from that side of the family as much as they could. I hadn't even talked to my other grandparents since I had moved to Tennessee. I overheard them talking about it once, and Papa said I could look them up when I was 18. I only had three months, but I was going to that reunion, no matter what. They weren't going to stop me this time.

Granny and Papa went to the senior center on Wednesday to play Bingo, so I had the house to myself for a little while. The card had a number to RSVP, too, so I grabbed my cell phone and called it. I was supposed to speak to Ava, and I wondered if that was my grandmother. My hands shook as I dialed the number, and I chewed on a fingernail as I waited for someone to pick up the phone. What were they going to think of me? Would they be glad I called? Or was I just a reminder of something they wanted to forget?

"Magnolia Manor. This is Ava Forsythe. How may I help you?"

I couldn't find my voice. I hit the end button and cut off the call. As soon as her voice filled my ear, I knew in my heart that it was my grandmother. I remembered her talking to me as she smoothed a strand of hair behind my ear, her voice as she read me a story or singing a song as we sat on the front porch swing with the rain falling overhead. I had to figure out what I was going to say and call back.

What would they want to hear from me? Should I be myself or try to be cool? I wanted to be that little boy again, curled up in her lap with my head against her chest, her perfume making a sweet-smelling cloud around me. We couldn't go back again, as much as I wanted to, but moving forward was possible and new memories waited on me. I dialed the number again. When she answered, I told her who I was.

"Excuse me? Leigh? Is that really you?"

"Yeah, Grammy, it's me." My name for her sprang immediately to mind, and I knew it was the right one. "I got the invitation for the family reunion today. I want to come."

"You do? Oh, that's wonderful." Her cultured voice sounded elated but quickly became more subdued as she asked, "What do your grandparents think about it?"

I got up from my desk and plopped back down on my bed. "They don't know yet. I reckon I'll have to talk to them about it tonight. I don't know what they'll say." I did know, but I didn't want to say it out loud.

"I'll go ahead and put you down for a room. You just let me know if they don't want you to come or won't let you, and I'll take you off." She sighed. "If you want me to, I'll talk to you for them."

"I might need you to do that." I said in soft admission. It would not be easy to convince my grandparents to let me go and I needed an ally I could get. "I'll let you know. I can't wait to see you again."

"I can't either. Leigh, we have missed you so much. I wish..." Grammy's voice filled with regret before trailing off.

"Wish what?"

My Mother's mother sighed remorsefully. "It doesn't really matter right now. We would love to see you, so please do what you can to come."

I promised to do my best and wondered what she wished. Did she wish Momma hadn't killed Daddy, then herself? Of course she wished that. I wished it myself. I wished it every single night and quite often throughout the day. Maybe she was wishing she hadn't let me go and live with Granny and Papa. That made more sense, but she didn't really have a choice about who I lived with. My parents hadn't left a will, and my grandparents were granted custody because of what my momma did.

I put the invitation in my journal in my desk drawer and wondered what to do next. An image of an antebellum home filled my mind, and I knew it was Magnolia Manor. According to the Web site, the plantation came by its name because of four magnolia trees evenly spaced on the land. Clarence built the house directly in the center of the trees. Back in the 1950s the house had been turned into a bed and breakfast, with the slave quarters fixed up to be rented to house guests. I remembered helping my Grammy clean the rooms when I lived there. I tried remembering my other relatives but came up blank. Maybe seeing them would jog my memory. I just had to convince Granny and Papa to let me go. If they didn't, I guess I could get Bailey to drive me to Georgia, but I didn't want that. My grandparents could be dense at times, but they meant well and I didn't want to hurt them.

A door shut down below, and Granny yelled up the stairs for me. I answered her, then decided to run down. Before I asked, I had to see what kind of mood they were in. I gave Granny a kiss on the cheek and then sat down on a barstool to eat a brownie from the ones she brought back from the senior center.

She stroked my hair and kissed the top of my head. "You've got your momma's hair. Forsythe red, your daddy always called it."

Granny hardly ever talked about my parents so I was intrigued. "I knew Momma had red hair from the picture I've got. Did anyone else?"

"Yes, I believe your daddy told me all the women in the family had red hair. I also remember pictures on the walls of the bed and breakfast of ladies with red hair."

"What about the men?" I asked as I pulled some of my overly long hair to look at it. "They have red hair too don't they?"

Granny appeared lost in thought for a moment before shaking her head. "Not that I can remember but I only met a few of your momma's kinfolk."

What was making Granny think about my parents? The anniversary of their deaths was coming up, but even so, she didn't usually talk about them this much, especially not momma. She talked about daddy every once in a while, so I knew more about him than I did the woman who gave birth to me.

She sat down beside me and got a brownie. Maybe now was the time to talk to her about going to the family reunion. Papa had already gone into the living room to watch TV. He would go along with whatever Granny said anyway.

"Granny, I got something in the mail today."

She turned to me with a smile. "Did your ACT scores come? I just know you did well on them."

I fidgeted nervously before plucking up the courage to push forward. "No, that'll probably be next week. I got an...um...it's an invitation to the family reunion at Magnolia Manor. I want to go."

Granny shook her head. "I don't think that's a good idea. Why bring back such bad memories? I don't think I could stand going down there."

"You wouldn't have to. Bailey could take me down there if my car is not fixed by then. It's in August, so I wouldn't have to miss any school." I turned to look at her. "They're my family, too, and I want to see them again."

Granny's eye grew wide as she started shaking her head. "Bailey take you? No, no, that just wouldn't look right. She wouldn't stay, right?"

I knew she was weakening. "I'll probably stay in the house, and she'll stay in one of the cabins outside. My grandparents will be there to keep an eye on us." I leaned in to whisper, knowing I was going to freak her out. "Besides, we don't have sex anyway."

She waved her hand in front of her face. "I DID NOT need to know that, Leigh. Well, maybe I did need to know, but I don't want to talk about it."

I laughed. Most boys would freak out about talking to their Granny about sex, but I don't really care. She's pretty much open to whatever I have to say about it. "Well, we aren't. So, you wouldn't have to worry about that." I pinched a corner off a brownie. "I've already called them. My grandmother said if you wanted to talk to them about it, you can give her a call."

She stood up and paced the floor. "I just don't know. I'll have to think about it. You still got about a week before you have to go, right?"

"Yeah, I do. It's right around the time when..."

Her expression showed the pain I was feeling thinking about that day. "I know. It happened at the end of the reunion week. We were there; we always came down for it. I don't know why they continue to have it that week."

"I went on the Web site, and it said they were honoring the anniversary of the death of Clarence Forsythe and the disappearance of Gabriella and Garrett Gillette."

Granny's voice rose in anger. "They could have stopped after what happened. Had it another time. I don't know what in the world they're thinking about," she stopped her pacing and sighed deeply. When she began speaking again her tone was resigned. "But it's their choice. I'll give you an answer soon."

I nodded, then went upstairs to my room. It did seem funny they'd keep having the reunion in August after what happened. Maybe they kept having it then because it was the anniversary of Clarence's death and the disappearance of Gabriella and Garrett and didn’t want to change things.

I needed to talk to someone about all of my feelings. My best friend, David, didn’t understand. He always said I was too serious and never wanted to have any fun. Losing your parents the way I did at the age I did will make you serious. I always told him. He wouldn’t want me to go just because I’d miss some party. We seemed to be drifting apart lately, anyway. I spent more of my time with Bailey than I did with him, and he had recently started dating someone seriously, too.

I had my cell in my hand when it rang. It was Bailey. I laid down on the bed and propped the phone to my ear. "Hi, hottie," I said.

"You sound off somehow." My girlfriend could always tell when something was on my mind. "Anything special happening?" She asked.

I explained about the invitation I received. "I want to go, but I'm waiting on Granny to tell me if she cares."

"I'll take you whether she says yes or no, if you really want to go." The depth of her sincerity shined through. Bailey always had my back and would always do what she thought was best for me.

"I know, but I don't want it to come to that." I sighed. "I could drive myself down there if I really wanted to go against them, but I don't. I want her to tell me it's Ok."

"Why?" Bailey laughed lightly. "You're about to be eighteen so does it really matter?"

"Yeah, it does." I loved my grandparents for everything they had done for me. "They took me in and raised me and they didn't have to. I don't want to do anything to disappoint them."

"All right, babe. The offer still stands, though."

"I know." Granny yelled up the stairs that supper was ready. "I've got to go. I'll see you tomorrow."

***

After supper, I came back upstairs and laid down on my bed. Granny hadn't given me an answer yet, but I thought she might let me. She always stressed the importance of family, even though she had kept me away from the other side. I never really understood that. Maybe it was because it brought back sad memories of my dad or maybe she was afraid I'd turn out like my mother if I stayed around them. I know she blamed momma for everything that happened. My memories of Momma were happy, singing, bubble baths, playing with toys, coloring. Nothing that ever hinted at violence, but she had snapped somehow. I heard about it all when I turned 12 from my Granny. After asking her a ton of questions, she finally sat down and explained to me what happened.

Bailey and I were getting up early the next day to take a road trip to Chattanooga to visit Rock City. We did things like that quite a lot during the summer months when neither of us had school, and she didn't have to work. Besides, come fall, she was going away to college, and I was going to be starting my senior year. I wanted to spend as much time with her as I could.

After turning down the bed and getting my pajama's on, I went downstairs and kissed my Granny and Papa goodnight. Granny hugged me tight and said, "I'll let you know soon about the reunion, OK?"

I nodded and went back upstairs to my room. What might convince her to let me go? I climbed into bed with that question in mind. The twilight state between sleep and awake soon found me, and just as I was about to go over into the land of sleep, I heard a voice. It wasn't loud enough to make me rouse up, but it sure sounded familiar. "Leigha, you must go to the reunion," a female voice said. Familiar though it was, I couldn't place it.

A male voice then joined in. "You have to make the truth known and make it all stop."

Chapter 2

A flash of red hair went before my eyes. Was I dreaming? I couldn't seem to make myself sit up or open my eyes. Sleep seemed closer and closer as the two figures came nearer to me. Now, I knew why the voices were familiar. It was my mother and father, and I had to be dreaming.

As if he read my mind, my dad said, "You aren't dreaming sweetheart. This is the only way we can visit you to let you know what we want."

"This isn't happening. I'm lying in my bed with my eyes closed, and I'm seeing dead people. It's a dream."

It was remarkably like a dream. I was standing in front of the two people I had longed to see every day of my life. Momma touched my hand, and I felt her touch on my real hand that rested on the bed. Even though I had longed to feel her touch for years, the coldness of her hand made me jump back, and I felt myself being pulled out of sleep. She grabbed me back just before I woke up. It felt as though she was pulling me through pudding.

"Leigha, we need your help," Momma said. "We need you to go to the family reunion and stop a curse that has affected your family for the last 150 years."

"Curse? What curse? I don't know what you're talking about." I wanted to wake up and get away from them, but I also wanted to stay with them a little longer, to hear the voices I hadn't heard in so long.

"We won't be able to rest until the mystery is solved. I didn't kill your father, not really," she said.

Dad moved to stand next to her and took her hand. "She wouldn't have done that. We loved each other too much. She wasn't even mad at me the night she died. You have to solve the mystery."

"Why me? Why not someone else?"

"Because we know you can do it," Dad said. "You'll be able to figure it all out since you didn't grow up in the house, and you've distanced yourself from it. Find a way to go."

"I don't know if Granny will let me or not," I said. "She's never let me have anything to do with that side of the family before."

"I'll take care of her," he said. "I'll appear to her just as I have to you."

I wanted them to stay forever. I had so much I wanted to ask them, but they turned away. I grabbed Momma's shoulder and turned her to face me. "Why haven't you appeared to me before now?"

"It takes a lot of energy to do this, to travel to a different location than the one we are at normally," she said.

I felt like a little boy as I asked, "Can I have a hug before you go? Please, just one?"

Momma and Dad both smiled with tears in their eyes. Momma held her arms open, and I ran into them. She didn't feel like a ghost to me, and she wasn’t cold anymore. Solid and warm with the scent of lavender, just as I remembered. I didn't want to let go, I tried to squeeze a little tighter, but I was soon waking as she disappeared from my mind. Maybe I had just been dreaming, but why did I still feel her arms around me?

A curse? How was I going to break a curse? I didn't know anything about curses or ghosts, except for the shows on television which are never real anyway. The thing is, what Momma and Dad said stuck with me. I never believed she could have done it either or maybe I just didn't want to believe it. Sometimes, I even felt like I was bad or different because of what she did. If I could clear her name, that would be great, but should I trust a dream or whatever it was? Tears would not stop rolling down my cheek to my pillow. Their visit made me realize with such clarity how much I missed out on by not being able to grow up with their love and support.

I thought about calling Bailey, but her mother would freak if her phone woke her up.

I settled back down under the covers and closed my eyes. Part of me hoped Momma and Dad would appear to me in my dreams, but my sleep was quiet for the rest of the night.

Granny knew I was leaving early the next morning, so it didn't surprise me too much when she stuck her head in the room before my alarm clock even went off. She came over and sat down on my bed.

"I've decided to let you go to the family reunion," she said. Her eyes looked more peaceful than I had ever seen.

While I'd been hoping she would say yes, her quick decision caught me by surprise. I was not expecting an answer for at least another day or two. "What made you change your mind?"

"Your mom and dad appeared to me in a dream last night." Granny's smile was serene as she shook her head. "No, dream isn't the right word. I don't really think it was a dream. I really think their spirits came to me. They told me I had to let you go, that what I thought happened was wrong. They want you to figure it all out. I feel like I'm crazy telling you this."

I took her hand. "You aren't crazy, Granny. They came to me, too. I don't know how I'm going to figure anything out." Dad said he was going to appear to Granny, too, but I still didn't feel confident that it wasn't anything more than a dream. "I don't know anything about curses or ghosts."

"It doesn't matter to me if you figure it out or not," Granny said, "but I know what I feel now. I don't think you're Momma did it. I've let go of the anger I felt against her for the past 13 years." Tears filled her eyes. "It was so hard to hate someone that you loved."

I hugged her. "I know. I've always had trouble believing it. The memories I have of my momma don't fit that of a murderer." I sat up and hugged her. "You and Papa can come, too."

"No, I don't think so, not this time. You go. I don't want to interfere in you meeting them," she said. "Bailey can take you, but I am going to talk to your other grandmother about putting the two of you in bedrooms far away from each other."

I rolled my eyes and laughed. "I've told you, you don't have anything to worry about."

She left the room, and I got up to get dressed. Even though my dad and momma appeared to Granny, too, I wasn't sure if I really believed it wasn't anything more than a dream, a very real dream, but a dream nonetheless. As I pulled on jeans and a t-shirt and pulled my long hair into a ponytail, I wanted to believe I really saw them. I wanted to believe that my Momma's hug was real but it was almost too much for me. I had never seen any ghosts before, and didn't even know if I believed in them or not.

***

The next week went by fast. Granny called Magnolia Manor and spoke to my other grandmother. She was assured that Bailey would be put into a cabin outside and that I would have a room in the house. Bailey's parents gave her permission to go. Together, we planned out the best way to get there. The plantation was located just outside Bowman, Georgia, which was very close to Atlanta.

From what I gathered from the Internet, they hosted school groups to show them what a plantation was like during the slave days. Workers dressed in period costumes and showed them how to make soap, butter and other things.

Guests ate at a table in the dining room with food served family style. All of this happened about 40 years ago, right around the time my momma was born. I wondered why they changed from farming to the hotel business, but their web site didn't tell me that. I guess I'd find out when we got there.

I called Bailey the night before we were leaving to work out the final plans. She was as excited about it as I was. "You're going to be here around 7 in the morning, right?" I asked excitedly. "And, you filled the car with gas already?"

"Man, you sound like mom when she and my dad are going on a trip. Yeah, I'll be there at 7, and I've filled it up." Bailey said with a laugh. "I think this is going to be a lot of fun. Do you think the place is haunted?"

I already shared with her my dream of my parents the first time we talked this morning. "I don't know, but if I was really seeing my parents' ghosts, then I would say it is. I've got to find out about this curse right away or if there even is one."

"I think I'm going to like trying to solve a mystery. Besides, I know it'll make you feel good to figure out what happened with your parents."

I nodded before realizing she couldn’t see me. "I guess we'll see about all that tomorrow. I'm going to pack and then try to get some sleep."

I ended up with clothes all over the room. I wasn’t sure what to pack. Grammy hadn’t told me much over the phone. I wasn’t a dress up type of person. My wardrobe consisted mainly of jeans and t-shirts and sneakers. I knew it would be hot there, even hotter than here at home, so I packed some shorts and jeans. I decided on one nice outfit, and even it was just a button-up shirt and black pants. I took out the only dress pants I owned and debated between the two nice shirts I had. I thought I owned a tie but could not find it anywhere but it was not a huge loss as it was a clip-on. I couldn’t borrow one of Papa’s because all his ties were older than me and almost as wide as my entire body.

The thought crossed my mind to have Bailey stop somewhere so I could buy something nicer but quickly changed my mind. Even though my girlfriend could see that I was smaller than most guys my age, I didn’t want her to go with me to shop from the boy’s section. Besides, I wasn’t going to pretend to be something I wasn’t. Either they loved me for who I was or they wouldn’t at all.

I slid down under the covers. Even though I was so very tired, I didn't think I would be able to sleep. Ever since my parents appeared to me in my dream, bed time never came soon enough. With me hoping they might come to me again, that made it even harder to fall asleep.

As soon as my eyes closed and I started drifting into sleep, I knew I would have the dream I had had since moving in with my grandparents. The setting was my parents room at Magnolia Manor. The room was dark when a loud noise woke me up. I felt around the walls but couldn't find the light switch. My hands fumbled in front of me for the door, for anything to help me find my way, but my feet always get tangled in a blanket on the floor, and I fall. I find my way back to my feet and put my hands out once again, sobbing, as I hear heavy breathing and frantic whispers. I don't know what is going on. My hand finds the door and as I turn the knob, a bright light flashes as a loud noise fills the room. I scream before waking up.

Instinctively, I knew it's a nightmare of the night my parents were killed. After I have it, I always feel guilty. Like I could have done something to prevent me becoming an orphan. Tonight was no different. I sat up, put my head in my hands and cried as if I were the same frightened four-year-old again. As silly as it sounded, I carried a hope that I would find my parents at the plantation, but I knew it wasn't going to happen. They were dead. My dream was just that: a dream. A nice dream, a wonderful dream that allowed me to feel my mother’s love again but did she really love me? A woman who took my father away from me before leaving herself was not a woman that loved their child. It was time to face reality, my parents hadn't really appeared to me. I wasn't going to Georgia to stop a curse. I was going to see a family I hadn't seen in 13 years.

Chapter 3

Bailey and I traveled over Monteagle Mountain on our way to my grandparent’s. In another month, she would be coming this way to go to Sewanee, the University of the South. I was hoping to get in myself, but they were very select in who they picked. My grades were almost as good as Bailey' marks, and we both participated in the same number of extracurricular activities. I thought I might have a good chance.

I looked over at Bailey, wondering again how I had gotten someone as gorgeous as her. Ok, I knew I wasn’t ugly but I was not conventionally masculine. I had nice hair, straight teeth and good skin, but I was a small little nobody. At only five foot 6 and barely weighing a hundred and twenty-five pounds, I was one of the smallest boys in my class. I was thin and didn’t really have any muscle tone since I never worked out I didn’t play any sports, although I was involved in many of the academic clubs and editor of the high school newspaper. I had never been the type to take pride in my appearance. Most mornings, I rolled out of bed in just enough time to brush my hair and throw it up in a ponytail.

Bailey, on the other hand, was a sports fanatic. She played softball and basketball and she was good at it. She had also been on the homecoming court last year. She was the perfect girl. Short black hair, green eyes, a flat stomach, five foot eleven and a perfect athletic build. She was not over endowed in the chest area, to be honest you couldn’t really tell she even had breasts, but I don’t think she would have looked right with large breasts. I thought she was very sexy. The greatest thing about her was that she was mine.

I guess it didn’t hurt that we had known each other since I moved back to town with my grandparents, but I never would have guessed that the day I turned 16, she’d ask me out for a real date. The thought never crossed my mind that someone as beautiful as her would be interested in dating me. Of course, I said yes, and the rest is history.

Bailey had taken the lead in our relationship since she first asked me out. She preferred to drive when we went out. Anytime we went anywhere we either went dutch or she paid. When things started becoming more serious, she was the one who made the first move. I was ok with all of it because I’d never been aggressive in my life. My grandmother always called me the sensitive type and attributed it to the trauma of my parent’s death. I had no idea why I was the way I was. All I knew was that I was the type who was happier helping Granny in the kitchen than helping my grandfather work in the yard or on his farm equipment.

I forced my mind to stay on Bailey and school to keep it away from what was going to happen when we arrived, but I wasn't strong enough to do so. Would they be glad to see me? Grammy acted like she was, but I didn't know about my grandfather. My memories of him weren't as strong as those of my grandmother, but I remembered him smelling of vanilla from the pipe he smoked.

"You're awfully quiet. You nervous?" Bailey asked. I could see the concern on her beautiful face.

"Yeah, a little. I'm just wondering if they'll want to see me." I said while looking out at the passing scenery.

She reached across her small car to take my hand. "I'm sure they do. It's been a long time, and they loved you. I think they'll be glad you're there."

I shrugged. "Maybe. Last night I had that nightmare again. When I woke up, I thought maybe I was wrong for believing my parents had really come to me. Let’s be real here, there isn't any such thing as ghosts. Now, I don't know what to think."

"There are ghosts." Bailey’s voice was firm with conviction. "My mom said she saw her dad the night he died, even though she was at college 200 miles away. I've heard other people talk about it, too. I've always believed in it. It doesn't mean you're crazy if you do."

I squeezed her hand. "I guess I can ask them if the house is haunted when we get down there. I don't know what they'll tell me about the night Momma and Daddy died, but we'll see."

The closer we got to Atlanta, the hotter the weather became. Bailey rolled up the windows and turned the air conditioner on. We traveled the interstate until we saw the exit we needed to take and turned. Bailey followed the curving road until we came to a small town. I put my hand on her arm.

"Before we go to the plantation, I want to stop at the library," I said. "I want to find out if there really is a family curse."

Bailey had a skeptical look on her face as she glanced at me before looking back to the road ahead. "How are you going to do that? You really think someone is going to tell you something?"

"I'm going to look at the newspaper archives" I said as I began to share an idea that had been rolling around in my mind since last night. "I'm sure they have a newspaper here, and I'm sure they'll have copies in the library. I'm going to search out every month of August for the last 100 years and see what I can find."

"That's a good idea." Bailey’s beautiful face lost all traces of doubt as she smiled. "Let me stop and ask where the library is, and we'll get over there. What time are they expecting us at the house?"

My eyes moved to the clock on her radio. "Not for a few more hours. We've got time. I really want to do this."

I needed to know if the dream was real or not. Late at night, I seemed crazy for even believing it, but it had seemed so real and Granny had dreamed the same thing. How could we have the same dream? It wasn't that I had never believed in ghosts before. I did or always thought I did, but when something paranormal happened to me, I wasn't able to believe it.

Bailey pulled her dark blue Hyundai Veloster into a mom and pop gas station, and a man came out to check if we wanted gas. Most places didn't do that anymore, but in a lot of small Southern towns, you could still find personal service. Bailey asked him to fill the tank, then inquired about the library.

The little old man wiped his hands on a rag and stuck his head in the window. When he saw me, he said, "You've got to be one of the Forsythe girls, what with that red hair. You in town for the family reunion?"

Bailey snickered as this was not the first time an adult had made that mistake. Instead of correcting him, I just nodded my head. I didn't know whether to tell him who my parents were but decided to go ahead and do it. "Elizabeth was my mother."

"Shame what happened to her and Robert. I always liked them. Don't seem like that long ago, though. What was it, 'bout 13, 14 years?"

"Yes sir. It was 13 years ago. I haven't been back since." I wondered if he would tell me anything. Thankfully this was a small southern town and they all loved sharing gossip.

"Seems like something bad happens out there every so often. Nothing since your momma and daddy though." His expression became deadly serious. "Still, you be careful out there."

"What kind of bad things happen?" Bailey asked before I had the chance.

"Murders and suicides. We don't talk a whole lot 'bout it round here. You just watch yourself out there. It's haunted, y'know."

I looked at Bailey, who grinned at me, then back at the old man at the window. "No sir, I didn't know that. Who's the ghost supposed to be?"

He wiped his nose with the rag. "More than one ghost out there from what I hear. Don't really know who it is. I do know they have trouble keeping help."

The gas pumped clicked, and he moved to top off the tank. When he came back, Bailey paid him, and I thanked him for the information. After we pulled away, I looked at Bailey and grinned. "I don't think we need to go to the library. I believe I've got all the information I need right now. Those murder-suicides must be the curse my parents were talking about."

"Yeah, I think so, too." Her eyes flickered with the same excitement I was experiencing. "I think we might've been able to get more out of him if it had taken longer to fill up the tank."

"Maybe we can go back another time if I need to try to find out more." Now, I was more excited about the trip. I knew something happened out there. Whether it was a curse or not didn't matter. The little old man proved to me that the visit from my parents had been true and not just a figment of my imagination.

I read from the directions I had taken down from my Grammy over the phone to help Bailey find the plantation. Every landmark she described to me as places to turn were just as I imagined. Her driveway started off the main road, but we couldn't see the house. The gravel road twisted and turned with magnolia trees lining the way. My mouth dropped open as the house came into view. I didn't know what I had been expecting really, but the house was in much better shape than any other Southern plantation home I had ever seen. The porch, or veranda as I had heard them called before, wrapped around the entire house with the porch steps extending into a cobblestone walkway. Hanging ferns hung above the wrought iron porch rail. The bricks were white and looked as though they had just been painted. Eight windows graced the front of the house with a small balcony above the green front door, which accented the green tin roof. A side porch held a swing and other lush plants. Memories stirred as I looked out over the fields and saw a grape arbor with a hanging swing. I knew I spent a lot of time there when I lived here.

I looked over at Bailey who sat with her mouth wide open. I reached over and pushed up on her chin. She grinned at me. "Nothing like this back home,"

When I made no move to exit the car, Bailey reached across and gave my hand a light squeeze. "We can't sit here all day Baby." She smiled and put my unvoiced fear to rest. "They're your family and they'll love you so stop worrying. Let's get out and get going."

We opened our doors at the same time, and as we did so, a silvery-white haired woman came out of the front door. I tried to get a reading on her face, but as the porch was high off the ground and we were parked a good distance away, I wasn't able to tell if I knew her or not. As I walked up to the house, she started to run down the steps and stopped when she was right in front of me.

She touched my hair. "Just like your momma's. Oh Leigh, I'm so glad you came."

Tears welled up in my eyes. It was my Grammy, and she was glad I was here. I didn't have any doubts about that. She held out her arms to me. I ran into them and squeezed her as tight as she did me. When Bailey approached with our bags, I broke away from her and introduced the two of them. Grammy told Bailey to leave the luggage there and took us both by the hand. Together, we walked up the stairs. As we ascended, I took the time to study Grammy. Her hair gleamed in the sun and curled gently around her face, not a strand out of place. She also wore a full face of make-up, something I wasn’t used to as my Granny rarely even donned lipstick. She wore a pencil thin skirt in black with a polka dotted blouse. Her white wedged heels set it off to perfection. I looked down at my own worn jeans and faded t-shirt and wished I had taken the time to put on something nicer.

"Your grandfather is waiting inside for you. He wants to take the two of you on a tour of the grounds and the house." She looked over at me and smiled. "I just want to look at you for a while. It's just been too long."

My head bowed in shame. "I know. I'm sorry my grandparents kept me away."

Grammy's fingers gently lifted me face back up so she could stare at me. "I understand why they did it. It's a lot of painful memories." She wiped at her eyes. "Let's not talk about that though. I don't want to ruin our time together by talking about sad things."

I didn't want to hear that. Someone was going to have to share with me about what happened in the few days leading up to my parents' death or I was never going to be able to figure it all out.

We walked into the house, and the first thing that greeted me was a huge winding staircase. The rich honey-colored hardwood floors continued to the staircase, which seemed to go all the way to the top of the cathedral ceilings. An old gilded mirror rested on one wall above a table which held a vase full of yellow flowers. The walls were a rich deep red. A chair upholstered in the same red as the walls stood under a painting of a red-haired woman. As the wall continued up the stairs, so did the paintings. The next to the last painting was of my mother, who was wearing a green off-the-shoulder dress with a hoop skirt. The next was of a girl I didn’t know, but she looked remarkably like my mother.

"Those are every first-born of every direct descendant. We're going to have to have yours done while you are here." Grammy said.

All the pictures were of women and each of them wore a dress very similar. "But they are all women." I said as I continued to stare at the wall.

"Are they? Grammy said with a smile. "I haven’t noticed before. We usually do them on the 16th birthday, but we'll make an exception in your case." She squeezed my hand. "Let's go find your grandfather."

I looked back to Bailey who shrugged her shoulders. It felt good to know that she was as confused as I was.

We continued up the stairway and turned on the first landing. The house had three floors. "Do your guests stay all over the house?" I asked.

"Pretty much, except for one wing on this floor. It has your grandfather's office and our parlor and bedroom. When your mother and uncles were little, we took the whole third floor as our home and just rented the rooms on the first and second floor." She turned down a hallway. "We don't need that much room now."

We stopped outside of a closed door, and she knocked on it. I heard a deep voice tell us to come in. I remembered hearing it read me stories as a child, but I couldn't put a face with it. In just a minute, I would be able to. Grammy opened the door and led us in. My grandfather stood in front of a fireplace with his elbow resting against the mantle. He wore dress pants and a shirt and tie. I wondered if he dressed up like this every day or if he did it for me. Again, I wished I had taken more time with myself that day. He looked from a picture of my mother and father to me. "You look so much like my Lizzie," he said. He held out his arms to me, and I ran to them like I was eight instead of about to turn eighteen.

He carried the same aroma my memories said he should. "You smell just like I remember you," I said with tears in my eyes. My voice was muffled against his shirt front.

"How's that?" He asked with an amused grin on his aged but handsome face.

"Like vanilla tobacco. I remember your pipe."

He pushed away from me and walked to his desk and opened a drawer. When he straightened, a pack of the tobacco rested in his hand. "I still smoke it, just not in the house. Grammy doesn't think the guests would like it."

I introduced him to Bailey and then said, "Grammy said you want to give us a tour."

"I do, and I want to show Bailey to her cabin. She'll be staying out there while you're here. I think you'll like it."

Chapter 4

The tour started out on the grounds. My grandpa took us out to the cabin where Bailey would be staying, and we stowed her luggage in there. Our next stop was another cabin way across the plantation, this one was not modernized.

"We use this cabin to show school groups what life was like during the slave days," he said. "We try not to gloss over the details and make life seem easier for the poor souls forced to stay here than it was."

The cabin had a dirt floor and rough wood table. One corner contained a bed which was merely a straw mattress laid on wooden strips. Across the room was a fireplace.

I walked around the room and tried to imagine living in something like that. Even though the weather was warm, wind blew through the cracks, so I knew it would be freezing during the winter months. The one window didn't have glass in it.

"Do you get a lot of school groups?" I asked.

"Usually in the spring," he said. "They bring them out for their final field trips."

We walked over a big hill and at the bottom of it was a large pond. A dock extended out into it. I suddenly remembered fishing there with my grandpa and falling in one time. I laughed and said, "You jumped in after me one time, didn't you?"

His laughter carried a deep undertone that seemed to echo across the pond. "Yes, I did. It was your first time fishing, and you fell in. You came up laughing. You loved the water. Do you still?"

I nodded and ran out to the end of the dock to look at the murky green water below. "I don't think I'll want to swim here, though."

"We've been thinking of putting in a pool for our guests," he said. "I guess we'll see about that next year."

We moved past the pond and went to the grape arbor with the swing. Another memory stirred, this one of my parents. Momma held me in her lap while my dad pushed us from behind. I remembered the cool breeze blowing across my face and the warm sun shining down while we all laughed. Bailey and I sat down in it together, and I looked up at my grandpa.

"You're Grammy doesn't like to talk about it. She thinks it will give us a bad name or something, but some say this house and the grounds are haunted," he said. "This is actually one of the places the guests have said they've seen something. I've seen ghosts here."

"Who did you see?" Bailey asked.

"Elizabeth and Robert. This was a favorite spot of theirs. Your mother loved it when she was a little girl, too."

Grandpa sat down in a wooden chair across from the swing. Bailey and I pushed the swing with our feet. I leaned back and enjoyed the feel of the breeze on my face. When I looked back down, I found Grandpa staring at me. I smiled at him and asked, "Are there any other ghosts here?"

He nodded. "I grew up hearing about these ghosts because this is my family's home. Grammy thinks it makes us look bad, but almost everyone knows it is. Our first ghost is Gabriella," he said.

"Isn't she the one who's being honored this week?" I asked.

"Yes, we always hold this family reunion in honor of the anniversary of her and her husband's disappearance and the death of Clarence, her father. In 1857, Gabriella and Garrett went on a trip to visit his parents under the guise of picking up their daughter who had been visiting them for a few weeks. They never made it to his parents' house nor back home."

"They never found their bodies?" Bailey asked.

Grandpa shook his head. "Nor any sign of them either. The morning after they left, Clarence didn't wake up. He was dead, had died in his sleep. He never knew they had disappeared."

"Did they ever have any clue about what happened to Gabriella and her husband?" I asked.

"Not really. Several books have been written about their disappearance. It’s one of the big Southern mysteries," he said. "One of them was pretty sensationalized. It said they were kidnapped by Union forces and held for years as prisoner."

"But the Civil War didn’t start for several years after their disappearance," I said.

"That’s right. Even so, the Union wouldn’t have wanted them as prisoners because they had abolitionist tendencies. Years later, it came out that Garrett's parents had been involved with the Underground Railroad. It was believed that Garrett and Gabriella were involved in it, too. Some have said they were killed by a slave owner, who disposed of their bodies. Others have said they were caught and escaped, but had to travel out west so they wouldn’t be jailed. One thing is for certain, though, Gabriella would never have left her daughter forever. She loved her too much. From what we've discovered through family diaries and letters, the child was the light of her life."

"What was her name?" I asked.

He smiled. "Leigha. Your momma loved the story of Gabriella and Garrett. Plus, Leigha turned out quite well in spite of losing her parents and growing up during the Civil War. She went on to own her own business, so your momma took it as a good sign to give you that family name."

"That's so cool. I never knew that I was named after someone in the family. So, Gabriella is a ghost here?"

"We've had guests who have heard her crying. She never speaks to any of them, just glides in and out of the rooms as though she's searching for something. We think she's looking for Leigha."

"What about Garrett? Has anyone ever seen him?"

Grandpa shook his head again. "No. I'm not sure why, but he doesn't seem to be here. The only other ghost is Clarence."

"Gabriella's father?"

"Yes. He's seen on the front porch of the house with a gun in his hand. He's also seen right outside of the cabin where Bailey is staying. Usually, he can be heard crying."

I didn't understand why Clarence would be crying. Gabriella was understandable, but Clarence. "Why? Why would he be sad? He never knew Gabriella and Garrett went missing."

"I've never been able to figure it out." He stood up from his chair. "Would you like to see the house now?"

I nodded. "I'd really like to see where I'm going to be staying."

We followed him to the front porch, where he turned to stop us before going in. "Please don't say anything to Grammy about the ghosts. She doesn't really like to talk about it, and she wouldn't like it if she knew I told you about it. She likes to keep up appearances."

We promised that we wouldn't say anything. I didn't understand why he would tell us if Grammy was so against anyone knowing about it. Maybe he was afraid someone else would tell us and we wouldn't get the whole story or even the right one.

The first room we entered was the dining room. A huge dark wood table rested in the center. Pushed up to it were about 16 chairs. Smaller tables rested in the corners of the room with four chairs to them.

"We try to serve our guests family style, but sometimes we have too many to fit at the main table," he said. "When the whole family gets here for the reunion, we'll need all these tables and then some."

The next place we visited was the ballroom. Grandpa told us the Magnolia Ball was held there every year. The floor was an intricate patchwork of light and dark wooden squares. Windows, some stained glass, went from floor to ceiling.

"I can't believe those made it through the Civil War," I said.

"They didn't. This whole room was redone around 1890 after Leigha's business took off. She owned a dress shop and was able to have the whole house renovated," he said. "We've had the floor redone since then. You should see it on the night of the ball. Everyone dresses in period pieces. Magnolia branches and flowers grace the window sills and the mantle over the fireplace. Candlelight flickers. I believe your father fell in love with your mother on the night of the Magnolia Ball."

I smiled and closed my eyes. The music of the Tennessee Waltz filled my ear, and I could see Momma with her red hair in ringlets and a white off-the-shoulder dress dancing with Daddy. "I remember them dancing in here. I wasn't supposed to come down and look but I did anyway."

His matching smile grew wider than my own as he nodded his head. "I remember seeing you peek through the drapes where you were trying to hide. Do you remember me picking you up and dancing until your Momma caught us?"

"Oh, now I do!" I said with a laugh. I was hiding inside one of the many curtains that hung around the room and squealed in delight as Grandpa lifted me up from behind while tickling me. He dipped and twirled me while singing the words in his rich baritone voice. I remember loving every moment.

"The maids we have cleaning this room say they've seen your momma and daddy in here dancing." Grandpa said, losing the joy on his face. "I've seen something when I was outside and looking in the window but I couldn't be sure."

He showed me the guest rooms on the first and second floors, and then we went to the third floor. We walked past one room, and my memory flared again. All the air left my lungs as I stopped in front of it. "This is where it happened, isn't it?" I didn’t realize I was crying until Bailey pulled me close and wiped a few tears from my cheek.

"Yes," Grandpa said with his own tears beginning to form. He took my trembling hand in his own. "This was the room your parents stayed in the night they died. We don't allow anyone to stay in it. In fact, your Grammy keeps it locked and hasn't changed anything since that horrible night. Your momma's things are still in there. She lets the maids go in once a week to clean."

I had to get into that room. I wanted to see if stirred any memories for me. Maybe my parents would appear to me again if I went in there. I might even be able to get something that was my momma's. I didn't have anything belonging to her at all.

Grandpa showed me to my room, which already had my bags in it. Grandpa left Bailey and me alone and went back to his study. We went outside and sat in the swing under the grape arbor. My head rested on Bailey' shoulder. "I hope I get to see my parents while we're here," I said. "Maybe they can tell me more about this curse."

"Do you think it might have something to do with Gabriella and Garrett? More Gabriella though, since she and Clarence are the only ghosts to appear."

"I would think so. I wonder how we can find more out." I sighed. "Grammy isn't going to tell us anything."

"I bet if you talk to the staff you'll find stuff out," my brilliant girlfriend suggested. "They'd probably love to spill about things they've seen going on."

My arms wrapped around her neck and I kissed her with all the passion I could muster. "What a great idea! You're right." I looked at my watch. "It's too late to talk to anybody about it today, but we can do it first thing in the morning. I'll take the inside staff, and you can talk to the grounds people."

"Sounds good to me." She leaned over and kissed me again. "I hope I don't see Clarence's ghost outside my window tonight."

I laughed. "With my luck, I'll probably hear Gabriella crying. I don't mind seeing my parents, because I'm pretty sure they won't hurt me. However, I don't know enough about ghosts not to be scared of the others."

Chapter 5

The next morning, I went down to Bailey's cabin before breakfast. I knocked on the door, and she opened it wearing just a sports bra, yoga pants and bare feet. She was the only girl I knew who had washboard abs in high school. It was one of the many things that attracted me to her after we became teenagers. Not only did she play softball, she was on the basketball team and practiced every morning in the gym before school. Before the practices were over, she’d always be down to her sports bra and dripping with sweat. I think I stared at her stomach for six months before she caught me.

This morning was no different. It was obvious she'd been exercising from the layer of perspiration covering her attractive body. I loved that stomach and pushed a hand against it to make my way back into the cabin. She flopped down on the bed and pulled me on top of her. I hadn't lied to my Granny. We weren't having sex, but I was surely tempted at times. Like then, when she smelled so good and was pushing my hair away from my neck and kissing my neck. I allowed her to do it for a little while and then kissed her back. When I pushed away from her, I was breathless.

"It's getting harder and harder to say no," I said.

"Then why do it?" She asked and grinned as she ran her fingers through my hair. "Have I ever told you how much I love your hair?"

I smirked at her. "Maybe once or twice." She was the reason I kept my hair long. In eight grade I overheard her talking to her friends about how she found men with long hair sexy. The only haircuts I’ve had since hearing her say that were just to trim the dead ends.

"We don't have time for it this morning." I said even though I was leaning my head closer to her so she could continue running her fingers through my hair. Her stomach growling ruined the moment. I patted her toned tummy, letting my hand linger longer than I probably should. "We've got to get you some breakfast and then talk to the staff."

She grabbed some clothes out of her bag. "Let me take a shower, and then we can go back up to the house. You want to join me?"

I grinned and shook my head. I knew she was only kidding. Even though I was probably the last great-American virgin in the country, I wanted to stay that way until I was 100 percent sure I was ready. I was at 98 percent and climbing but I didn’t want Bailey to wind up a statistic. A promising future ruined by becoming pregnant in high school. I know it made me strange to think about things like that, but I did.

Bailey came out of the bathroom fully dressed and drying her pixie cut hair with a towel. She put some gel in it and ran a hand through it and pronounced herself ready to go. She didn’t need make-up to be beautiful which was good because I could count on one finger on one hand the number of times I’d seen her wearing any. And that was only because she lost a bet.

I hugged her again before giving her another kiss and said, "Let's go eat, and then we'll get busy with our investigation."

We sat down at the large table with Grammy and Grandpa. So far, we were the only family who had arrived. One of the maids brought out platter after platter of food. How did they eat like this every morning? Grammy, Grandpa and Bailey all took a fluffy buttermilk biscuit and broke it apart. They passed a bowl of sausage gravy around the table, and each one placed a large dollop of it on their biscuits. I passed. I once heard that if you didn’t like biscuits and gravy, you weren’t Southern. I guess I’m not Southern then because I’ve never been able to stomach the stuff. I did, however, take some of the butter and honey and put it on my biscuit.

Over the bacon and eggs, Grammy told me my uncle Kerry would be arriving with his wife. His children, who were almost all grown and married, planned to get here the next day. "Your dad and Kerry were best friends during college," she said. "That's how Robert and Elizabeth met."

I filed it away for later. I was sure Kerry could give me plenty of good information about my dad. When I searched my memory for him, I couldn't put a picture with the name. I just knew I felt good when I thought about him.

After everyone finished breakfast, I left Bailey on the front porch and went back inside. My first stop was going to be the kitchen. I didn't have any idea who the cook was, but I thought he or she might be able to give me some clues about what was going on in the house.

I pushed open the double doors leading to the kitchen. A large black woman scrubbed a stainless steel table. She turned to look at me, and a big grin lit up her face. "Well I s’wanee. You gotta be Miss Leigha. I'd know you about anywhere."

"I’m not a Miss but I am Leigh." A name entered my head. "You're Miss Lena, aren't you? I remember baking cookies with you."

Her grin widened as she opened her arms. "Yes ma'am you sure did. Now get over here and give this old woman a hug."

I found myself sinking into her embrace and was immediately taken back in time. I had no doubt that she must have hugged me a bunch when I was a kid. I was about to correct her for calling me ma'am but decided against it. She might not talk to me if I did.

"I didn't remember you until I saw you," I said. "I still don't remember a whole lot."

"Bless your innocent little heart. You were awfully little when you left here. Shame what happened." She shook her head and flipped a towel over her shoulder. "Figured you might be coming to see me."

"Why did you think that?" I asked.

"I been working here for going on fifty years." Miss Lena winked mischievously. "Thought you might want to talk to someone who knows about this house."

"I do." I looked back over my shoulder to make sure no one else was in the room, leaned over and whispered, "My parents' ghost came to me. They said this house has a curse."

Miss Lena's head began nodding vigorously. "They're right. It do. I came to work here ‘bout 10 years after your grandpa's sister and her husband died. They couldn't keep anybody in the cook's position because of the ghosts, so they were paying an awful lot for those days. I took the job and stayed on. I had two boys to put through school."

"What is the curse? Is it that a woman in the family kills her husband and then kills herself?"

She nodded again. "That's what it looks like to me, but I ain't so sure that's all of what it is. I've seen it happen three times since I been here. Those three couples shared a mighty love for each other, specially your momma and daddy. Find it hard to believe Miss Lizzie would want to kill Mister Bob."

A tear began forming in Miss Lena's eye. "I helped raise your Momma. Every day she came in here to spend time with me. To talk wit' me about stuff she'd never tell your Grammy." She began shaking her head. "No Maam. There ain't a person on this earth that could convince me your Momma didn't love you and your Daddy with all her heart. Miss Lizzie wouldn't a left ya by her own choice."

My own tears began falling as I saw how much Miss Lena loved my Momma. Missing out on having this wonderful woman look after me growing up was another on the list of things I had been deprived of in my life. "What do you think happened?"

She walked over, leaned against the counter before handing me a cookie. "I think it's something to do with the ghosts in the house."

I took a bite and savored the deliciousness before I asked, "Why hasn't anyone tried to stop it?"

Miss Lena shrugged and helped herself to a cookie, too. "Who knows? Your grandpa, he don't mind admitting the place is haunted, but your Grammy won't hear a word about it. If’n you can't admit there's a problem, ain’t nothin’ no one can do to fix it."

"My parents asked me to stop it, but I don't know how." I sighed before finishing the cookie. "Talking to you was my first step."

"T’was a good one girl. Talkin’ to the other staff will help, too. Some of the girls have been here quite some time and seen a whole lot. The gardener's another good one to talk to. It ain't just the house that's haunted; the grounds are, too."

I grabbed another cookie and gave her a hug. "Thanks for your help Miss Lena. I really do remember you. I can't believe you're still working here, though."

"The pay's good and I’ve grown to love your family. They always been real good to me and mine." She said as she returned my embrace. "If’n the good Lord’s willin’, I'll probly be here another 40 years."

I waved goodbye and rushed from the kitchen. Miss Lena had given me some good information, but she didn't really know anything more than what my grandpa told me. I still thought the best way to find out any information was to get into my parents' room. I didn't know whether to ask my Grammy or not. She might not like the idea of me going in there. The maids had a key to the room. Would they let me in when they cleaned?

It wouldn't hurt to ask. I made my way up the stairs looking for them. I didn't see any signs of anyone until I looked up at the third floor landing and saw three women with cleaning supplies coming down the stairs. I waited for them to come down to the second floor and walked up to them. "Have you cleaned all of the third floor yet?" I asked.

One of them nodded. "We've got all the extra rooms finished for when the family gets here."

I decided not to ask about the room. I'd find another way to get in. "I was just talking to Miss Lena, and she said y'all had seen the ghosts around here before."

The taller lady looked over her shoulder. "If your Grammy knew we were talking to you about this, we'd probably get fired. We've all seen Gabriella walking around. Your momma and daddy, too."

"Did you ever hear them say anything?" I asked.

"The only thing I've ever heard is Gabriella crying and your parents laughing, or at least, I think it was laughing. It's very quiet and hard to tell exactly. Gabriella's crying is a lot louder."

Knowing my parents were happy together gave me hope. If momma had truly killed daddy, there was no way they would spend their afterlife together. There had to be a curse and I was more determined than ever to stop it. "Where do you normally see them?"

The younger girl spoke up. "Your parents are usually running down the stairs, hand in hand, toward the ballroom. Seen them in there, too. Gabriella's always on the third floor or in the ballroom, although some people have said they've seen her outside. I ain’t never though."

We walked a little way down the stairs. "Do you ever see anything in the bedroom where my parents were killed?"

"No, but it's creepy to go in there," she said. "Your parent’s things are all still in there. I think the only thing that has changed is they took the sheets off the bed and changed out the mattress."

"I've seen something in there." The woman who had remained quiet thus far finally spoke up. "There's a picture of you as a baby on the dresser. I unlocked the door one day and saw your parents standing there looking at it. It wasn't scary. I just felt bad for them."

Her telling me this made me want to get into the room even more. I wasn't sure how I was going to do it. Not only did I want to get in there, I was thinking I wanted to spend the night, too. If I had more time in there, they might appear to me. The woman went down the stairs, but I stayed where I was and sat down.

In my dream, my momma told me it was hard for them to appear to me, that it took a lot of energy. I needed to find a way to communicate with them that wouldn't take as much energy. I didn't know a thing about ghosts though, had never even taken the time to do any research or read any books, although I did love a good ghost story. I wanted to figure this out to clear my momma's name. I hated the thought of her going down through history known as a murderer. Even though I remembered very little, I know I have always loved her. Tears filled my eyes, and I wiped them away. One way or another, I was going to find out what happened that night.

I made my way to the third floor and to the room where my parents died. Even though I knew the maids had locked it behind them, I tried it anyway. The knob turned a little when I felt a tap on my shoulder, and I shrieked and spun around.

Chapter 6

A man stood in front of me. He had dark auburn hair not as bright as my own but apparently only ‘the women’ and me had the distinctive hue. I knew he had to be part of the family. I tried to place him, but couldn't.

"If you want to go in there, I can get you a key. You don't have to sneak around to do it." He stuck out his hand. "I'm your Uncle Kerry."

I felt like I should remember him, but I really didn't. The only thing that came to mind was him bouncing me up and down on his leg and him saying, "Trot little horsey." Beyond that, though, he was a mystery.

"I wasn't trying to sneak in there," I said cautiously. "I thought I just might check and see if the maids left the door unlocked and..."

"And go in?" His smirk let me know I wasn’t fooling him for a second.

I nodded and fought back being defensive. Why did it matter to him if I wanted in there or not? I had more right to go in that room than anyone. I crossed my arms in front of me. "I just wanted to see where it all happened."

"Uh-oh, I recognize that tone from my daughter's teenage years." He reached out and squeezed my shoulder gently. "You're upset."

"No, I'm not. I just don't appreciate being accused of sneaking around when I wasn't." I knew I was though. I just didn't like this man I didn't really know telling me that I was.

"Ok, so you weren't sneaking around." He said in a placating tone. "Do you want my help in getting into the room? I might be able to talk your Grammy into letting us go in."

I shook my head. "I don't know if I want her to know or not. If it will upset her for us to go in, then I don't want to do it."

"Then I'll talk to your grandpa. I don't think he'll care. I don't think Grammy's been in here since it all happened."

"I'd just like to see some of my momma's things." My voice was soft and I fought to keep my tears at bay. "I don't have anything of hers."

We walked away from the door and made our way downstairs. He stopped at the bottom and looked up at me. "I think we can work out a way to get you something of your momma's. I might have a few things, and there might be a few things in storage."

I looked around amazed at how familiar everything felt. "Did we live here? I don't remember us having a place of our own at all."

Uncle Kerry nodded. "Y'all were living here when it happened. At the time it was the only home you’d ever known. Your parents were having a house built. They were supposed to move into it the week after… uh the week after the ball."

I finished walking down the stairs. "What happened to the house?"

"It's still there with the furniture they picked out in it. It's on the other side of the property here."

I left him to go and find Bailey. One day, before we left Magnolia Manor, I was going to go and see the house I would have grown up in if my parents had lived. The tears I’d been fighting back finally filled my eyes. It just wasn't fair. My parents had been taken away from me for no good reason. I no longer knew whether to believe what I had been told since I was four years old, that my mother was a murderer. Even though I hadn't wanted to believe it growing up, I had no choice because I didn't have any other reason not to. Now, all of this business about a curse had popped up, and I was supposed to solve it.

I made my way out the front door and sat down on the front steps. For about ten minutes I quietly sobbed to myself over everything I'd lost. When the stupid tears finally stopped, I wiped them away with the heel of my hand. I hated crying and didn't want to do it now. What I needed to do was figure out what was going on.

Even though I knew the house was haunted, I still wasn't sure if my parents' deaths happened because of something paranormal or a family curse. Maybe someone else in the house did it, but who? None of them seemed capable of it, but no one thought my momma would have been able to do it either. I was just going to have to keep my eyes and my options open to anything.

Bailey walked up and sat down beside me. She touched my face. "You been crying?"

"Yeah, a little." I shook my head. "No, actually a lot. It's all just so overwhelming. I don't know if I'm going to be able to figure it or not." I took her hand in mine. "Maybe I should just let it go and enjoy my time here."

."If that's what you want. It could have all been a dream, you know. "Her voice was soft and reassuring. Exactly what I needed in that moment

I stood up. "I know, but they appeared to my Granny in a dream, too." I paced the porch. "If it wasn't a dream, I'll be letting them down" My tears started flowing again and my voice was breaking. "I don't want to do that. What if there really is a curse and it happens again? I’ll feel like it’s my fault."

Bailey got up, wrapped her arms around my waist and stuck her hands in my back pockets. She rested her chin on my head. "Why don't you sleep on it tonight? Make your decision in the morning."

I tipped my head up so she could kiss me. Having Bailey there made me feel so much better. At least, she was familiar to me, something from home. No matter how comfortable I was in the house, I'd been deprived of the chance for it to be home. My home was my grandparents' house in Tennessee.

She broke away and pulled me over to the rocking chairs. She sat down in one and patted her knee. I didn't want to risk my Grammy or grandpa coming out and seeing it but at the moment I didn’t really care. After I sat on her knee, she pulled me closer before wrapping her arms around me and lacing her fingers together.

"I found out a little bit from the gardener," she said as she kissed my neck. "Almost everyone has seen your parents out at the grape arbor swing."

"Yeah, they've been seen in the house a lot, too, but they never speak." I replied as I tilted my head to give her better access.

"One of the other ghosts that's been seen outside is Clarence. He's sometimes seen standing right about here on the front porch with a gun in his hand. Other times, he's at a patch of land right outside the window of the cabin I'm staying in. He's always crying when he's seen there, just like your grandpa said."

A sigh escaped. "I still wonder why he would be crying. He died before he ever found out about Gabriella and Garrett disappearing."

Bailey shrugged. "Maybe he had something else to be sad about. I don't know. The only other ghosts are a couple of slaves. The gardener said he's heard them singing."

That was so interesting to me. I wanted to find out more about the history of the plantation. "How about we go to the library tomorrow like we planned to when we first came to town? I'd like to see what I can find out."

"It might help to see how many of the murder-suicides have taken place. Is it really a curse like your parents said?"

I nodded. "Miss Lena, the cook, told me three have happened while she's been here, but I don't know if three makes a curse or not."

"One unexplained murder-suicide would qualify as a curse to me. Especially after seeing how much it has hurt you over the years." My wonderfully supportive girlfriend held me even tighter. "We'll make the trip tomorrow."

We separated quickly when we heard a car pull up the driveway. It was another uncle and his wife, who I wasn't able to place either. He was my momma's youngest brother, Casey. Momma was the oldest child, but Casey was only two years younger than her. He hugged me tight. "You look so much like her," he said and brushed tears away from his eyes. "She was one of my best friends growing up."

As I watched him go in the house, I wondered why none of them had ever come to see me or to call. Actually, I had thought about that quite a bit over the years, but I hadn't voiced it to anyone. I was always afraid it would hurt my Granny's and Papa's feelings if I asked about them, so I just kept it inside. Maybe I could ask Grammy or Grandpa and find out now. Growing up, I always wondered if maybe Grammy and Grandpa blamed what happened on me somehow and that's why they had stayed away.

Bailey pulled me to her and told me she was going to go back to her cabin for a nap. She kissed the top of my head. "You want to join me?"

"Maybe in a little while. I want to see if I can find my grandparents and talk to them about something."

She reached for my chin before tilting my face to her and gently placing her lips to mine. "Ok, just come on down when you're ready."

"I will." I kissed her again and watched as she walked down the steps. I loved the way her jeans hugged her butt.

I walked into the house and saw my Grammy arranging flowers on the center table. I walked up to her. "Can I ask you a question?"

She turned to me with a smile. "Sure. Ask away."

"Everyone seems so happy to see me, but I can't understand why they didn't try to get into contact with me before. Can you tell me why they didn't?"

Chapter 7

Her mouth dropped open, and she led me into the dining room. "Oh honey, I hope you haven't thought you did something to keep us away."

"No." The damned tears made an unwelcome reappearance. "Well yeah, maybe a little. I always wondered if you blamed me for what happened."

She pulled out two chairs, sat down in one and motioned for me to take the other. "For about a year afterward, I was simply in shock. I just lost my only daughter, who was pretty much my whole world. I love my sons, but I had a special bond with your mother."

"Didn't you want to see me?" My voice relayed the hurt I had kept hidden most of my life.

"Not at first. I didn't want any reminders of her around." Grammy’s eyes glistened with her own unshed tears. "That's why their bedroom is still locked up and so is the house they built. I haven't even been in the room since it happened."

"So you do blame me." I said with a sob. "That’s why you sent me away with my grandparents?" I don't know why, but I never even asked them why I was with them. I guess I was just thankful that they loved me enough to take me.

"Oh Leigha, I mean Leigh." Grammy was now sobbing as well. "I never blamed you for any of this." She paused a moment and it looked to me as if she were trying to gather her thoughts. "I was a wreck. Your grandparents came in and took you the day of the funeral. I was so distraught I couldn't have handled your care anyway. When I finally gained some semblance of sanity, I wanted to see you, but your grandparents didn't think it was a good idea. I felt so guilty about my grief that I just went along with them. I have always only wanted the best for you but I kept sending you invitations to the family reunion every year. Hoping for the day I could make up for my mistakes."

Something about her tone and expression made me wonder if she was sorry for even more than what we were talking about.

"They never told me about momma and daddy from when they were together. Why did they think it wasn't a good idea for me to see you?" I was trying not to get mad at my Granny and Papa. I figured they had a good reason for it, even if I didn't see one.

"I asked your Granny once, and she said she was afraid it would bring back bad memories for you. She said you had nightmares about it quite often. I think she was afraid you might not be able to handle coming here."

"I did have nightmares, well actually I still do every once in a while. It's mainly me being in the dark, but I know I'm in this house and my parents are in the next room."

"Do you have any idea why your Granny changed her mind?" Grammy asked timidly.

I debated about whether to tell her the truth about Granny and I having the dreams of my parents and decided against it. As much as she hated talking about ghosts, I thought she might not appreciate me telling her about it. "She said it was time, and she knew I would be coming here next year no matter what."

She seemed to accept that answer because she just nodded and moved on. "Your two uncles have called your grandparents, too, but they wouldn't let any of them see you. I'm not trying to lay all the blame on them, because we took far too long to contact them, but we did try after a while."

"I understand. I'm not really mad at them. I think they did what they thought was best for me." I knew they loved me the best way they knew how. "It bothers me a little bit, though."

"I’m so sorry Leigh." Grammy stood up and hugged me. "I hope we'll see more of you now that you've been down here. I haven't stopped loving you just because I hadn't seen you."

I hugged her back. "I know. I just wish I could remember more about all of you."

"We'll make new memories." Grammy ran her hand up and down my back in a comforting manner than only a grandmother could. "I do hate that we missed your growing up years."

Our hug became tighter before she released me and gathered her composure. "I guess I better go check on the staff."

My emotions were off the chart so I decided to go down to see Bailey. Even though we weren't having sex, I did like laying down next to her with her arms around me. The only problem was that we usually wound up making out, and every time it happened it was harder and harder to stop.

I went down the front steps and started to walk down the paths to the cabins. As I did, a chill started at the back of my neck and worked its way down my spine. I shivered. At first, I thought it was just because someone walked over my grave, as Granny used to say, but goosebumps broke out over my arms. The temperature was actually getting colder. I felt like someone was watching me, so I spun around. No one was there.

I shouldn't have been scared. The sun made everything brighter, and night was still hours away. Yet, I still felt like I was being stalked, and I knew the air was definitely colder on the path than it had been off of it. I looked toward Bailey's cabin. Directly at the end of the path stood a man. Except it wasn't a man. He was transparent. It was like I was looking through a film to the other side of the property.

In spite of my fear, I started running down the path but stopped a few seconds later. I didn't want to frighten him away. The ghost had to be Clarence. I couldn't think of anyone else it could be. He wore tan trousers and a white button-down shirt. His hair was gray, even though I knew it had been dark red when he was younger from a portrait on the wall. As I moved closer, a sound reached my ears. The ghost was crying. I wanted to ask him about it, Taking careful steps, I inched closer. His back was turned to me, so I tried not to make too much noise. Besides, I didn't know what ghosts could or could not hear.

I wasn't filled with fear like I had been earlier. The air still remained cold, and I still had chills on my arms but I didn't feel in danger. Clarence wasn't going to hurt me. I didn't know how I knew it, but I did. He gave off a feeling that was sad but not dangerous.

The closer I came to him, the louder his crying became. I couldn't believe Bailey and the gardener weren't hearing this and outside seeing what it was. The sobs tore at my heart. They were cries of someone who knew a great sorrow, having lost a great love or suffered some terrible tragedy. I had to fight to keep from running to him, to offer him some comfort. If I raced up to him, he might disappear before I had a chance to talk to him.

I tiptoed down the pathway. It wasn't all that long, less than quarter of a mile, but I took my time. As long as his back was to me, I was pretty sure he wouldn't disappear or know I was there. Of course, ghosts might be able to see all around them, not just what is in front of them, but I wasn't going to take any chances. I had some questions for him. Besides, I think he appeared to me because he wanted to be seen. I think he wanted me to ask them.

As I got closer to the ghost, pressure built around me. I felt like the air around me had gained weight, if that made any sense. The air felt like water over me, and I felt like I was swimming underwater. The pressure slowed me down even more until I was barely moving.

I won't lie. Part of me was scared. I had never experienced anything like it before. The pressure mounted and became greater the closer I came to him. I knew this had to be a normal part of a paranormal experience, if there ever is anything normal about one. I simply didn't know if it was good to feel that way or not. Maybe the pressure indicated an evil presence, but to be honest, I didn't feel as though the ghost ahead of me was evil. I really thought he was just sad.

I was almost to the point where I could touch him, when he turned around and moved through me.

Chapter 8

The pressure of his touch knocked me to the ground on my butt. A coldness filled me. Strange thoughts entered my head, and I knew they came from Clarence. Guilt was what caused his sobbing. I knew that now. I just didn't know what he had done to feel guilty about.

To be honest, I wished he would appear again and move through me so I could receive more of his thoughts. For some reason, I had a feeling those might help me figure out what was going on in the house, which confused me. What could a ghost know about a curse happening 150 years after his death? I had to find out if the murder-suicides had been happening since then or if they were a recent phenomenon.

I rubbed my arms, trying to get rid of the coldness. The chill felt weird, because the other air around me was in the 90s, but I knew my body temperature was lower than it should be. I didn't know if anything would get rid of the freezing sensation I was feeling. I stood up and made my way to Bailey' cabin. I knocked on her door and then let myself in.

She was laying on the bed on her stomach, fast asleep. I jumped on the bed beside her, and she rolled over before she grabbed me and pulled me under her. She snuggled me under her chin and said, "You're cold. You want to snuggle with me until you warm up?"

I nodded and then told her what had happened on the pathway. "I haven't been warm since it happened."

She pushed away from me. "No shit? You really saw him on the trail and then he moved through you?"

I tried to get back to her warmth but she continued to hold me away. "Why would I lie about it? Of course I saw him."

Bailey finally pulled me back against her. "No fair. I want to see a ghost, too."

I laughed as I snuggled back into her warmth. "I can't believe you didn't hear him. He was sobbing really loud out there."

"I was dead to the world. I didn't hear anything until you came in and jumped on the bed with me."

I told her about hearing Clarence's thoughts when he moved through me. "What do you think about it? Do you think it means anything?"

My girlfriend shook her head. "Probably not, we all have things we feel guilty about. I'm sure it doesn't have anything to do with the curse."

"I want to go to the library tomorrow and see if I can find out how long this curse has been going on. Is it a recent thing or something the family's been experiencing for a while now?"

"We'll go in the morning." She kissed my forehead. "It'll be cool to look back at your family history."

I nodded and snuggled even closer to her. "Why don't you get me warm? I'm still cold."

She kissed me and wrapped her arms around me. I was lucky she was so understanding about the sex thing. From what I’d heard at school, most of my friends weren't as nice about it. Even though David hadn’t been dating his girlfriend Heather very long, he was already pressuring her into doing it, and from what Bailey had told me, she would give in sooner rather than later. Bailey wanted to do what I wanted to do. She might have bugged me about it every once in a while, but I knew she was only teasing. I knew she had been with one other guy and did not enjoy it. I thought she might be a little nervous about sex herself. I guess growing up with my grandparents made me a little old-fashioned. When I did something, I almost always thought it through and weighed the pros and cons.

I stayed with Bailey until it was time for supper, then we both went up to the main house. The house was filling up, but I knew even more people were expected the next day. We sat down at the table with the family, my family that I had never known. I looked around at them and realized I looked more like them than I did anyone in my dad’s family.

Dinner was served family style with two servers bringing bowls of food to the table. Tonight, it was fried pork chops, fried okra, pinto beans and cornbread, green beans cooked with bacon and a buttermilk pie for dessert. I crumbled a square of cornbread on the side of my plate and covered it with a heaping spoonful of pinto beans and their juice. Out of everything we had eaten there so far, those were my favorite foods, and I was sure Miss Lena was the best cook in the entire world.

We passed the rest of the platters around, putting more food on our plates. Kerry looked over at me and said, "The more people that’s here, the better the food is. Miss Lena likes to cook for a lot of people."

I took a bite of the pinto beans and cornbread, and I was right. They were the best I had ever had. I was pretty sure she put sugar in them, something my own Granny never did. I’d never tell Granny that someone else’s food was better, but Miss Lena’s sure was. I looked at Uncle Kerry and nodded. "I talked with her today. I remember her from when I was little."

Kerry looked up. "Do you remember any of us?"

I frowned. "Not really. You and Uncle Casey have kind of blurred together into one. I do remember Grammy and Papa."

"What about your momma and daddy? Do you remember anything about…" Kerry stopped when Grammy narrowed her eyes, frowned and cleared her throat. "Never mind."

I started to ask about it but I caught Kerry’s eye. He shook his head at me. Maybe he was planning to tell me something later, but I knew I needed to talk to him without anyone else, or at least, Grammy, around. He wanted to question me about something, to see if I remembered anything important, and I wanted to do the same with him.

After supper, I walked Bailey back to her cabin. We kissed on the front steps, and she invited me in. As much as I wanted to, I needed to get back to the house to get some sleep. The encounter with Clarence’s ghost had left me exhausted. Tomorrow was going to be another long day with us going to the library to do research.

Grammy stopped me as I was going into the house. "Tomorrow, we have to get you fitted for the um… outfit you’re going to have your portrait painted in, and I also want you to have a dance lesson. Have you ever taken dance?" When I shook my head, she said, "I just don’t want you to feel embarrassed when you don’t know how to do any of the old dances."

Part me wondered if she was more worried about her being embarrassed than me. I also wasn’t sure if I wanted her to know about the trip to the library. "Is there any way we can do it tomorrow afternoon? Bailey and I were planning to go to town tomorrow."

"Oh, really? How come?"

I searched my brain for an appropriate answer. "I just wanted to go and do some research on the history of the plantation. It fascinates me."

She nodded, and I breathed a small sigh of relief. I was afraid she was going to question my motives.

"Ok, so tomorrow afternoon it is." She started walking away with the largest smile. "The outfit will be green of course. I think you will look beautiful in it."

Something about the gleam in her eye bothered me but I chalked it up to finally being able to complete the family tradition. I went up the stairs to my bedroom and put my pajamas on. More than anything else, I wanted to get into my parents’ room, maybe even stay there overnight. Something in that room had to dislodge a memory or bring me closer to my parents’ ghosts or even that of Gabriella. I’d like to see Garrett, too, since no one else had ever seen him.

I laid down in the bed and closed my eyes. The house creaked and settled against the night. The wind whistled outside the window, and a magnolia branch scratched against the glass. I rolled over, punched the pillow and turned on the bedside lamp. I hadn’t needed a nightlight in years, but this house called out for one. I rolled around in the bed, trying to make a little nest for me to sleep in, but I didn’t succeed. I looked at the clock, right as my stomach growled. As much as I didn’t want to go exploring the house in the dark and even though I had eaten a huge meal only hours before, I knew I would never be able to sleep while I was hungry.

I put my slippers on and got into my robe. I opened the door to the hallway and looked out. Grammy and Papa hadn’t left any lights on. I wished for a flashlight or a portable lamp, then remembered my cell phone had a flashlight app on it. I dug it out and made my way into the hall.

I walked toward the stairs, sweeping the light around in front of me. It didn’t make much of a difference against the darkness, but it helped calm my shaky hands. I came to the landing and just as I was about to start down, a sound traveled to my ears from the other side of the stairwell.

I flicked the light off and started walking toward the noise. The farther I walked down the hall, the louder the sound became. It was a woman crying. My heart raced. Gabriella, it had to be her. At end of the hall, I saw her. She wore a green period dress with wide hoop skirts. Her red hair was pulled back in a bun at the base of her neck, and she was transparent. I could see right through her, but her sobs became louder and louder. I didn’t want to scare her, as I knew she had never talked to anyone before. I crept closer, just as I had with Clarence. This time, she looked up as I was right at arm’s length distance from her. She reached out a hand to me and touched mine. Coldness filled me, along with overwhelming sadness. I knew I was feeling a little bit of what she felt. "Tell me why you’re so sad, Gabriella," I asked.

She never answered but turned and disappeared through the wall. I put my hand against it. I don’t know if the wall was really cold or if my hand was still freezing from her touch. I ran toward the steps, and as I started down, I heard a noise and saw a shadow walking toward the kitchen. I wasn’t going to let this ghost get away from me.

Chapter 9

I ran down the stairs as fast as I could and turned toward the kitchen. Rattling sounds erupted from within, and I slowed my steps so not to rush in and scare the ghost away. This one was going to be the one I talked to, I just knew it. I eased my way around the corner and peeked inside. To my disappointment, I saw a real life person with his head inside the stainless steel refrigerator.

Uncle Kerry shut the door and turned. When he saw me, he jumped and put a hand on his chest. "You scared the dickens out of me. What are you doing down here?"

I leaned against the counter and tried to contain my laughter. "The same thing you are. I’m hungry."

He put down the sandwich fixings and motioned for me to sit beside him on one of the counter stools. I did, and we fixed our sandwiches in silence. I just had a feeling I could ask him my questions, have him fill in all the blanks that I couldn’t remember, and he wouldn’t mind at all. After we finished our late night snack, I turned to look at him. "What happened that night? Can you tell me more about it?"

He took my hand gently in his. "Do you remember anything at all? I wanted to talk to you about it at dinner but didn’t want to upset Mother."

"I just remember hearing screaming and being wrapped in a dark blanket. I have nightmares about it sometimes." I told him what happened in the dreams. "I don’t remember all of that to be honest. It just comes to me in the dream."

Uncle Kerry scratched his chin. "I was hoping you would remember more of it than that. I never believed your momma could have killed your father. She was the gentlest person I knew."

I nodded. "It happened the night of the Magnolia Ball, right?" Even though I loved hearing about Momma and Daddy, I had an even greater need to find out what happened.

Uncle Kerry's eyes began to mist over. "Yes, it did. We were all excited that year. Your Grammy and grandpa had hired a local, well-known band to play for us, and we all had our antebellum costumes planned out. They even had a little… uh… outfit made for you."

I suddenly remembered how excited I was to be wearing it and to be able to go to the dance for a little while. "It was green velvet with gold trim, right? It matched the style everyone has their portraits painted in."

He nodded. "You came to the ball and danced with your…" He paused to reign in his emotions.
"Daddy, me and your Grandpa. Your mom went upstairs to put you to bed. You were sleeping in the little dressing room off their bedroom."

It seemed odd that I danced with the men instead of the women but chalked it up to a strange family tradition because my memory seemed to agree with what he was telling me. I also remembered loving every second of it and not wanting the night to end.

I frowned as an obvious thought entered my mind. "Was that when it happened?"

He looked lost in thought for a moment. "No, it was later. Your momma came back downstairs and joined us all again. The night wound down, and Grammy and Grandpa went to check on the staff and other stuff for when the ball ended. We were still dancing but knew the party would be breaking up soon when your momma said she just had a feeling she needed to go check on you."

He stopped for a moment as if to compose himself. He didn’t have tears in his eyes, but they were red rimmed as though he would start any minute. I put my hand on his arm. "If it hurts you, you can tell me the rest later." I hoped he would go on because I wanted the rest of the story that night.

He shook his head. "I’m all right. After a while when your momma still hadn’t come down, Robert came over and shouted above the music that he was going to check on y’all. The next thing I know, Grandpa is running down the stairs with you in his arms, a blanket thrown over your head, yelling at me to call the police and an ambulance because it had happened again."

"Who was the first to find them?"

"Your grandpa. He had been going down to check to see how things were going in the kitchens when he heard the first shot. By the time he got to the bedroom, the second one sounded, and he rushed in to find your father dead on the floor and your mother on the bed, the gun beside her. You were standing in the doorway, screaming at the top of your lungs. Even though you had already seen most of it, Grandpa threw a blanket over you and rushed you out."

"I…I saw it all happen then?" I was in shock. If had seen it, why in the hell couldn’t I remember it? My memories were the key to unlocking what had happened.

"We don’t know. You could have opened the door after the shooting took place, or you could have opened it in time to see it all. That’s why I wanted to really know if you remembered anything. If you saw it all or heard anything, you might be able to answer the questions we’ve all had since it happened."

I stood up and paced the floor. "I don’t remember anything at all, other than what you’ve told me, but based on my dream, I’d say I didn’t get the door open until it was all over with."

He nodded. "I would hope so. Even though I wish we had more answers, I hope you didn’t see it. No one should have to, especially not a four year old."

I frowned. "I’m not. I wish I had seen it. Then, I’d know what really happened, if my momma was really the one who killed my dad. I need to know that for sure."

He gave me a sad smile. "It was pretty obvious. The gun was right beside her with her hand on it. There was no evidence of anyone else being in the room, besides your Grandpa after it was all over with."

"Whose gun did she use?"

"It was one out of your grandpa’s collection. He had been out target shooting that day and left the gun cabinet unlocked. Anyone could have taken the gun, but one of the maids had seen your momma in his study earlier in the day."

I nodded, thanked him for telling me the story and said goodnight. I had a lot to think about and wanted to do it alone in my room. I saw no ghosts as I made my way up the stairs and didn’t hear anything as I settled into bed. The only other person who could have done it would have been my grandpa. His face filled my mind, and I saw his gentle smile. He was as unlikely to be a murderer as my mother, but he was the first one to be in the room. It was also his gun. But, like Uncle Kerry said, anyone could have taken it since he had left where he kept them unlocked.

Now, I knew I had seen something, even if was only their bodies. I searched my brain and tried so hard to remember anything, even the smallest detail in my mind. I saw my dress, the red curls my mom styled in my hair that night. I remembered walking up the stairs with my hand in hers, the loud music all around us. The goodnight kiss, her giving me her love, all of that was there, but after it was a blank, until the darkness came over me. Try as I might, I could not remember anything more.

I couldn’t understand why, in my memory, I was wearing a dress or had ringlets in my hair. I punched my pillow and turned over on my stomach. Tomorrow we were going to the library, and I’d read more about the curse that affected the Forsythe family. With so many people being killed, something had to be going on. For some reason, I didn’t think it was something that had just started lately. I had a feeling it had been going on a long time.

Maybe a streak of insanity ran in our family. Would it come down to me? Or maybe it really did have something to do with the ghosts that walked the house and plantation grounds. I preferred to think it as the ghosts, and truth be told, it was more than just a preference. All of my senses told me the curse screamed paranormal. I just had to figure out exactly what happened. Just as I was drifting off to sleep, I heard a voice right beside my ear. It whispered, "You’re on the right track, Leigha. You can figure this out."

Chapter 10

The next morning as we sat on the shady porch swing, I filled Bailey in on what I had found out, including everything from Uncle Kerry, seeing Gabriella and then hearing the voice as I was drifting off to sleep.

"I still don’t think it’s fair that you get to see all the ghosts, and I haven’t even seen one yet," she said, laughing, "but I found out some information last night myself."

I wondered who she had talked to. "What kind of information?"

"I decided to take out my laptop and look some information up about all of this paranormal stuff. Apparently, you can set up tape recorders and record what ghosts are saying."

I raised my eyebrow and gave her a look. "Seriously? You can tape record ghosts?"

"Not always, but sometimes, especially when a place is really haunted. I thought we could buy two recorders and set one of them up in your bedroom and the other in the room where your parents were murdered. Then, we could check them every morning to see what is on there."

"That’s a great idea, except for one thing." I stood up from the swing and put my hand on my hip. "I haven’t been in their room, and I don’t know if I’ll ever get in there."

"Didn’t your Uncle Kerry tell you he’d help you get in there? Why don’t you ask him?"

I paced back and forth in front of the swing. I wanted to go into that room more than anything, but I didn’t want to hurt my Grammy. I explained it all to Bailey. "If it’s just going to bring back bad memories for her, I don’t want to do it."

She stood up and wrapped her arms around me. "You’ve been hurt, too, and maybe going into that room will help you find some of the answers you need. You can think about it while we’re in town going to the library. We can pick up the recorders then, too, if you want."

I hugged her back, tighter, once again glad she had come with me. If she hadn’t been here to support me, I’m not sure if I would have the courage to figure this mystery out on my own. After we released each other, I heard the front door open and turned to see Grammy smiling at us.

"Are y’all going to town now?" she asked. When I nodded she said, "Don’t forget to be back this afternoon for the fitting. I want to get started on the portrait right away. Bailey, I’m going to give you and Leigh a little tutorial on old Southern dances so you’ll be able to participate at the ball."

Dancing? I hadn’t even thought that much about it since she mentioned it the night before. I had two left feet. I tripped doing the hokey-pokey in school. How was I going to learn these dances in just a few short days? The thought of performing in front of a huge group of people caused the heat to rise to my face. I really was going to embarrass myself, just like Grammy said, and her too. Bailey looked at me and grinned. She wasn’t a bad dancer, but she knew my aversion to it.

I assured her we’d be back in time, then headed to the car to leave. Right before we got in the car, Grammy appeared at Bailey’s window. She motioned for her to roll it down. "I know Grandpa told you about the ghosts on the plantation, but please don’t say anything about it to the librarian when you go there." The intonation she used on the word ghosts said it all. She didn’t believe for a minute there were any in the house. Either that or she had told herself enough times that she made herself believe it despite evidence to the contrary.

Bailey asked Grandpa where the library was over breakfast so she knew where to go. I watched as the magnolia trees came to an end. The next plantation over the rise of the hill was dilapidated and so were the next two. However, two of the next three had been renovated with another in the process of being restored.

"I wonder if any of these other places are haunted," I said as I turned back to look at Bailey.

"It wouldn’t surprise me if they were." She grinned at me. "Maybe this will lead us to be ghost hunters."

I laughed and shook my head. "Nope. I think by the time this is all over with, I’ll be tired of ghosts."

We pulled into the parking lot of a huge, two story brick building. The windows on the second floor held the wavy glass of olden times with the ones on the bottom floor being more modernized. The older ones gave everything inside a hazy, grayish tint, as if I were looking into the eyeglasses of a very old person. I leaned over and whispered to Bailey. "This place looks like it might have a ghost or two."

She nodded. "Hey, why don’t you stay here and look through the archives while I go over to Walmart and pick up the recorders? That way we’ll be sure to get back in time to have your fitting."

As usual, her idea was a good one. I stopped at the door and wondered how modern the inside could be after seeing the aged façade? Would they even have the archives? I took a deep breath and went inside. A short lady with curly gray hair met me almost as soon as I walked in the door. "You have to be Elizabeth’s daughter. I’d know you anywhere from that red hair."

I nodded my head with a confused look. Why did everyone in this town forget I was a boy? Instead of embarrassing the elderly lady I said, "I’m here for the reunion and the Magnolia Ball."

"I’m Shirley Nutt, the librarian. What can I do for you today?"

I didn’t want to share what I was really looking for with her so I made up a little white lie. "I want to do a little research on the plantation and the Forsythe family. Do y’all have old copies of the town’s newspaper?"

She nodded her head. As we walked to the microfilm machine, I saw a little cubby filled with computers. Current magazines littered a table around a sitting area. "We’re trying to modernize as much as we can," she said. "We’ve been trying to raise funds for a while now. Your grandparents give a donation every year in your momma and daddy’s name." She looked at me again with a kind smile. "It's amazing how much you look like Elizabeth. She used to come in almost every day when she was your age. Your mother loved to read."

It warmed my heart to know where I'd gotten my love of reading. "I do too."

We finally reached the microfilm machine at the very back of the library. Even though I had my doubts my momma was guilty, I wondered why her family still did things to honor her. The ball was being held in honor of her and my daddy, and then this donation at the library. It was as if she died in some terrible accident, not through a murder suicide. Did they always turn a blind eye when it happened? Maybe it was Grammy’s way of keeping face to the public.

I forced myself to concentrate on what Mrs. Nutt was saying. She explained that for the last 15 years or so, all of the archives had been stored online through the newspaper office, but anything before that was on the film and had to be looked at through the machine. "How far back do you want to go?"

"I think I want to start in 1857, the year the first ball was held and go on from there."

She disappeared into a closet before returning with several boxes and said it would be enough to start. Each box had the year and the name of the newspaper on it.

"Are you interested in all the murders that have taken place out there?" As she remembered that one of those murders had directly affected me, she covered her mouth and stuttered out an apology. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to be so tactless."

Even though I’d lived with what happened almost my whole life. This was the first time I’d heard someone mention it so casually. It did bother me a little but I just shook my head at her and told her not to worry about it. She showed me how to load the film into the machine, and before she left, I asked her if they had a history of the Forsythe family or any of the books about Gabriella and Garrett in the library. She came back carrying two books. She held up one. "This has the histories of several area families in it. You should be able to find something in it," she said, then held up the other. "I tried to pick the least sensationalized tale about Gabriella and Garrett for you." She put them on the table, then left me alone.

I decided to look at the book about Gabriella and Garrett first. I opened to the first page and read. "One of the greatest mysteries of the old South is the disappearance of Garrett and Gabriella Gillette. Gabriella’s father was Clarence Forsythe, the man who started the large plantation Magnolia Manor, just outside of Bowman, Ga. Garrett’s parents lived in Tennessee and were ardent abolitionist.

"In 1855, Garrett and Gabriella’s daughter, Leigha, had spent the summer with his parents on their small plantation, where they did most of the work themselves along with a few freed slaves they paid. The couple left Georgia heading for Tennessee the day after the annual Magnolia Ball, which is still held to this day. According to information from Garrett’s parents, the couple was supposed to be bringing along slaves which they would help get on the Underground Railroad."

I stopped reading for a minute. Most of this I already knew, but where were the slaves going to come from? I scanned down the page and found a sentence. "Garrett’s parents didn’t know from what plantation the slaves would come from as a safety precaution."

If we knew which plantation they were taking the slaves from, we could try to find information to see if any disappearances had happened during that time. I scanned a few more pages and found evidence that a red-haired woman had been seen in Kentucky about two months after Gabriella’s disappearance, but she appeared to be traveling alone. If it was her, where was Garrett? I wanted to read more about it, especially since the story had fascinated my momma so much, but my main concern at this point was the curse.

Answers to those questions would be found in the newspaper. After I loaded the oldest newspaper film into the machine, I flipped to August and was amazed at how differently the papers looked back then. Headlines bumped against one another, and the type was tiny. I had to use the machine to blow up the print.

I found the write up on the Magnolia Ball, then Clarence’s obituary a few issues later. After that, several stories appeared about Garrett and Gabriella’s disappearance. Speculation abounded about what happened to them. One of the theories put forth were that they had been killed by runaway slaves, but nothing at that time mentioned anything about the Underground Railroad. Back then, no one would have confessed to having a link to it, especially not in this area. I decided that when I finished looking up information in the newspapers, I’d turn to Google and see what I could find about the Underground Railroad. I knew a little about it from my history classes but not enough to form an opinion about whether Leigha and Garrett had disappeared because of it.

I scanned several years in a row and didn’t find anything about murders. The issues were rare during the Civil War, and I assumed paper was in short supply since everything else had been, too. Each year, the paper did another story about the couple’s disappearance, but it wasn’t until 15 years after that a murder happened at the house. I knew it wasn’t something that had just started recently.

This time, it was Gabriella’s niece and her husband who died. The story was remarkably similar to what happened to my parents. Their names were Sadie and Spencer, and according to the article, they were totally in love. They also had a young daughter who was sleeping in the room next to them. No one could believe it had happened, but Spencer was found on the floor with Sadie on the bed, the gun next to her. Sadie’s father, who was also Gabriella’s brother, found them and took the little girl out of the house. It was deemed a murder-suicide and almost forgotten about, since I never saw anything else in the paper after that.

The next one occurred 15 years later, as well. I wrote down the names and the pertinent details, but they were pretty much the same as the first story. I found another murder 20 years later, and then the next one happened after 15 years. The police never had much to say about it, and the family never spoke of it to the reporters. Their response was always no comment. I found it hard to believe no one had asked more questions about it, but I’m sure it was suspected that insanity ran in the family. By the time I found six different murder-suicides, I was inclined to feel the same.

I also didn’t find anything at all about ghosts in any of the stories. I decided to stop looking at the microfilm and look in the book the librarian bought me. I searched the index and found the listing for the Forsythe family.

It was a little over two pages and read, "Clarence Forsythe purchased the Magnolia Plantation in the 1830. The next year, he married Collen Perryman, and a year later, their first child, Gabriella, was born. The couple went on to have three more sons. Clarence is said to have made his fortune playing cards, as little is known about his background before he bought the plantation and the home standing on it."

I skimmed over more of it and went on to read about Gabriella and Garrett’s disappearance. "Gabriella and Garrett left the day after the family’s annual Magnolia Ball to pick up their daughter, Leigha, who was having a summer visit to her father’s family in Tennessee. The couple never made it to their destination, and Clarence died the day after they left. No one knows what happened to Gabriella and Garrett, although many believed they were helping slaves to run away and came into some trouble on the road." The book detailed how Leigha was raised by Collen and her uncles and aunts. She went on to open a successful dress shop after the Civil war and made enough money to have the house restored.

Grandpa and Grammy were also mentioned. "Thomas and Ava Forsythe gave the house another major renovation in the early 1960s, turning the home into a bed and breakfast with several rooms inside the home and cabins for guests to stay in. They kept some of the original slaves’ quarters and opened the grounds to school and other civic organizations to educate young people about life before the Civil War. This venture has worked well for them, and the business continues well into this decade." The book was published in 1999, and nothing was mentioned about the murder-suicides that had taken place in the home nor about the ghosts said to reside on the plantation. The writer must have wanted to stay in the good graces of the Forsythe family.

My next stop was Google. I typed in Underground Railroad and found lots of hits for it. I decided to go with one from PBS. It said that it wasn’t run by a single organization or person and had many different people working with it, some white, many black. Most people only knew of local efforts to move slaves north and into Canada. Railroad terms were used for the organizations. Homes where slaves hid and found refuge were called "stations" and "depots." Those helping slaves move from one station to another were called "conductors." Runaway slaves, when found, were often beaten or killed, and some of the conductors were, too. I read stories of many courageous people who helped move the slaves to freedom, and I hoped Gabriella and Garrett had been involved in it. Knowing my ancestors had pursued such a dangerous endeavor that only helped others made me proud of my family.

Next, I decided to search the more recent archives and found the story about my parents. If it weren’t for the more modern style of writing, it could have been the same story as the murders over a hundred years ago. The odd thing was that the article referred to me as their daughter. I looked up their obituaries and both said my parents were survived by a daughter, Leigha Michelle Stone. How did they make that mistake? I was obvious Leigh Michael Stone. It said so on my driver’s license. I did a search for Forsythe and found too many listings to go through. Many of the stories were about Grammy’s charity work or pictures of local kids at the plantation learning about life before the Civil War. I finally did a search for ghosts, and I was surprised to find a story done for the Halloween edition. One of the reporters interviewed people to find out the most haunted places in town. All of them mentioned Magnolia Manor. One person, who used to work at the plantation, told the story about Gabriella and Clarence haunting the place. She said, "I heard crying and hurried around the corner. Huddled in the corner, her hands over her face, was Gabriella. She was dressed just like in the picture that hangs in the home." A chill ran down my spine, and I jumped as someone tapped on my shoulder.

Chapter 10

I spun around to find Bailey standing behind me. "You scared 10 years off my life," I whispered with my hand on my chest.

She laughed and kissed the top of my head. "Find anything interesting?"

"Yeah, but I don’t want to talk about it here. Let’s go out to the car."

We thanked and said goodbye to the librarian and made our way to the car. Once inside, Bailey showed me the tape recorders she bought and explained she had gotten the digital ones because the batteries last longer and the quality was better. I still didn’t know how I was going to get in my parent’s room. I guess I was going to have to ask Uncle Kerry about it.

"So what did you find out?" Bailey asked me as she stowed the bags in the backseat.

I told her everything. "I still don’t understand why the article and my parents obituaries referred to me as their daughter."

Bailey shrugged as she grinned. "Maybe they saw the last two Halloween parties we went to."

I laughed and playfully pushed her shoulder. "Hey, those costumes were your idea." Halloween before last Bailey talked me in dressing as maid Marion while she dressed as Robin Hood. Last year she somehow convinced me to dress up as Jessie from Toy Story while she went as Woody.

My girlfriend grinned playfully as she nodded. "Yes but…" Her eyebrows lifted. "I didn't hear you complaining about it."

A sigh escaped before I grimaced. "It made you happy, what was I supposed to do? Say no? You know I have a hard time saying no to you when you really want to do something. It's not like I sneak around trying to play dress up when nobody is looking." My voice began to rise a couple of octaves, like it did anytime I became upset. "I did it for you."

I angrily grabbed the end of my ponytail. "I'm not blind, I know what I look like but why does everyone here think I have always been a girl?" I smoothed my tee shirt down to show my flat chest. "I'm a guy dammit! See, no tits here."

Bailey's eyes widened as she gaped at me. "My chest is almost as flat. Are you saying you see me as guy?" She turned to stare out of the window as she whispered, "almost everyone else does, why wouldn't you?"

Her look of shock took the fight right out of me. "I'm sorry." I leaned across the car and wrapped my arms around her neck. "You know I think you are the most beautiful girl in the world."

Bailey's eyes held unshed tears. "No I'm not." It looked like she was about to say something else but changed her mind as her lips set in a grim line.

"Yes, you are." I said as I kissed the corners of her mouth. "You, Bailey Madison Wyatt, are the sexiest, smartest, kindest, beautifullest woman I have ever met in my entire life. I've had a crush on you since I was in sixth grade."

Bailey started laughing. "Is beautifullest a word?"

I grinned. "It is now."

She shook her head before letting her lips meet mine. "You're more beautifuller."

A giggle escaped as I looked into her mesmerizing green eyes. "Now who's making up words? Shouldn't I be handsomer?"

My girlfriend shook her head. "Not to me. Handsomer doesn't do you justice. In my eyes, you are more beautifuller than any man."

"And you are the most beautifullest woman." I replied.

Bailey grinned as she cocked her head. "So you don't mind half the adults thinking you are dating a guy?"

I laughed, "Why should I, most think I'm a girl anyways."

My girlfriend nodded as she joined me in laughter. "Good point."

While I loved finding out how she truly felt, I wanted to steer the topic back. "I also don’t understand why the police haven’t investigated to see if something else was going on. Didn’t they think it might have been someone else in the family? Isn’t several murders in the same family over the course of 155 years reason enough to investigate?"

Bailey shrugged her shoulders. "It seems like it, but they also had hard evidence that the major players were both dead. All of the women had gunpowder on their hands. Their fingerprints were all over the guns. All of the evidence pointed to the two people who were dead."

"Maybe there’s a thread of insanity that passes down to the female members of the family," I said, giving her a small grin. "Thank goodness it will skip me."

"I’ve dealt with your craziness for a while now." She said with a wink. "I’m not sure it’s confined to females." She pulled me in for hug before kissing me. "But don’t worry, I think I’m in for the long haul."

"You better be." I replied breathlessly. "I don’t think I could survive without you."

As we drove back to the house, I wondered if any of the previous victims’ daughters were still in the area. The one that happened before my mom and dad would only be in her 30s or 40s, the one before that only 10 to 15 years older. Maybe they’d come to the family reunion. I wasn’t sure who to ask about it. Uncle Kerry, maybe. It suddenly dawned on me. I’d talk to Miss Lena. I knew she wouldn’t mind answering my questions, and she wouldn’t stay anything to Grammy or Grandpa.

As soon as we got to the house and walked up the stairs to the front porch, Grammy met us at the door. She ushered us inside and said, "We’ve got to get you ready for your fitting, and there’s someone I want you to meet."

She lead me to the ballroom, and I figured I was going to meet the seamstress or whomever was painting my picture. Instead, I saw a willowy red-haired woman looking out the tall windows gracing the walls of the room. When she heard us enter, she spun around and said, "You must be Leigha."

I jumped back in surprise. My momma was standing at the window, and she was alive. My hopes flared, then I shook myself. My momma was dead, and this had to be another relative. She walked over to hug me. "I know I look a lot like your mother."

I returned her hug and said, "You do, but besides you looking like her, I don’t really remember you."

She laughed, a sound that made me want to laugh with her. "Of course you don’t. I was only 17 when you left here. I used to babysit you."

I tried to remember being left with her, but nothing came to mind. Grammy interrupted my thoughts with a laugh. "Why don’t you tell her who you are first? This is Caroline, your Uncle Kerry’s daughter. She’s your first cousin."

The name Caroline rang a bell, but I couldn’t conjure up anything to go along with it. "I wish I could remember you, but I don’t."

She linked her arm through mine and said, "That’s Ok. We’ll get to know each other better while you’re here. We’re going to be good friends. Your mom was my favorite aunt."

Grammy laughed again. "She was your only aunt."

Something about Caroline made Grammy seem more relaxed, at ease. Her spirit took away Grammy’s pain of losing her only daughter, if only for a minute.

"Well, that didn’t stop her from being my favorite. I named my four-year-old daughter after her. I hope I’ll be one of your favorite cousins."

I nodded my head, and I knew I would like her. She had the sweetest smile. More than just her looks reminded me of my momma. I’m not sure if it was a feeling of safety or the way a smile and a laugh came easily to her, but I wanted to hug her again, just so I could feel like I was embracing my mother.

Grammy handed me some clothing. I held them up. The top was a camisole, and the bottoms were like bloomers, only much longer. They would probably come all the way to my knees. "Go ahead into the coat closet and put those on. Caroline will bring the corset and the hoop in when you’re done, and by then, the seamstress will be here."

"But… but… but…" I stammered, trying to understand why she wanted me to wear these. "I’m not a girl." The two women cringed at my loud shriek. Anytime I became upset, my voice rose a few octaves and became rather loud.

"But what?" Grammy said with her hand on her hips, more than a little annoyed "This outfit is a tradition in this family and I’m not about to be the Forsythe that breaks tradition."

"I can’t wear a dress!" I protested rather loudly.

"Tish tosh." Grammy said dismissively. "You will not be the first to be dressed like that for your portrait. Hurry and get dressed so we can get you into your corset."

Corset? I didn’t agree to that. The only thing I knew about corsets was the scene from Gone with the Wind when Scarlett stands holding on to her bedposts, and Mammy cinches her waist down to 16 inches. It seemed like a medieval torture device to me. I was afraid to say anything, but my face must have given away what I was thinking, because Caroline laughed.

"But…" I again tried to form my argument. Bailey must have heard my distress from the other room and burst in before rushing to my side.

"What’s wrong?" she asked before placing me behind her protectively.

"This is none of your concern." Grammy said with a haughtiness to her voice that irritated me to no end.

"If you are upsetting my love then it damned sure is my concern." Bailey said angrily. I gasped at my girlfriend’s confession. I knew I loved her but had never voiced it out of fear she didn’t feel the same way. Her expression softened as she looked down at me. "Yes silly, I love you. Tell me what’s going on."

"I love you too." I whispered before pointing to the undergarments still in my grandmother’s hands. "She expects me to dress as a girl for the portrait."

Bailey nodded knowingly, our conversation still freshh. "We can leave right now if you want. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do."

"Wait!" My grandmother’s voice carried a panic unlike any I’d heard from anyone before. "This is a family tradition."

My girlfriend pulled me in front of her but closed her arms around me protectively as she whispered in my ear. "This is not your family. You barely know these people. Your family is back home in Tennessee with the grandparents who raised you and with me."

Caroline stepped in front of me with a look of shock before turning to our grandmother. "Why does she think she’s a boy?"

"You know why!" Grammy said with righteous indignation in her voice. "I told you years ago."

My cousin gasped as she stared at our grandmother. "I didn’t think you were being serious. How did you pull this off? Why would you do that to her?"

"I couldn’t let it happen to her too!" Grammy exclaimed with tears pouring from her eyes. "I just lost my daughter to this horrible house. I refuse to lose her too!"

"They why make her dress up for a portrait?" Carolyn asked in frustration.

Grammy fell to her knees. Her resentment was gone and a broken, sobbing woman was left in its stead. "Because it is tradition dammit! Lizzie would never forgive me if Leigha wasn’t on that wall."

My mind swam trying to understand the conversation. Why did everyone think I was a girl? Why did my grandmother want me to dress as one? Why was my grandmother so upset? If not for Bailey’s arms around me I’m sure I would have hit the floor. I needed answers and knew I wouldn’t get them if we left. Even though I barely knew my Grammy, I could feel her love as well as her intense pain. Why would momma never forgive her if I didn’t do this? In that moment I spoke before I had the chance to change my mind.

"I’ll do it."

"What?" all the woman in the room said at once.

"I’ll do it." I said with a sigh. "I won’t pretend to have a clue about what’s going on but it’s obviously important to you Grammy that I do this."

"Are you sure?" Bailey whispered in my ear so no one else could hear.

"I can’t get to the bottom of this if we leave and I don’t think we can stay if I don’t agree to her wishes." I whispered back.

"Do you want me to stay?" Bailey asked, still not letting me go. "I think I should."

I shook my head as I kissed her, so grateful for her support. "No, go see if you can find anything else out until our dance lesson."

My wonderful girlfriend kissed me deeply before releasing me. "I’ll be back soon."

Grammy looked relieved as she handed everything to Carolyn. She then looked to me. "I’m glad to know you have found someone who cares so deeply."

Carolyn held up the corset. "I won’t cinch it really tight. You’ll still be able to breath." She leaned over and whispered in my ear. "Grammy pulls it so tight you’ll feel like you’re being crushed. That’s why I volunteered to do it for you."

I almost hugged her. I went into the coat room, took my clothes off and put on the underwear. They fit, but I had never seen anything like them in person before. The bloomers fit almost like capri pants, only a little shorter. I stuck my head out the door and called for Caroline.

She came in carrying the hoop and the corset. I eyed them both with misgivings. I didn’t want to be cinched like Scarlett O’Hara, and I didn’t know how I was going to walk in that hoop, much less sit down in it. The corset was white and strings hung down from the back of it. The hoop looked the skeleton of a skirt.

Caroline handed me the corset first. "You have to put this on and then the hoop will go over it. You’ll come out in this, and the seamstress will help you get the gown on. It’s the same one I had my picture painted in, and your momma too."

"Didn’t most of the Forsythe women have their pictures painted in the dress?"

"Well, this is a replica of the dress, but Grammy likes to pretend it’s the same one." Caroline kind of rolled her eyes. "She’s a sweetie, so we all just humor her."

I laughed. "I do the same thing with my other Granny." I stepped into the corset and pulled it up until the top rested under where breasts should have been. "Is this where it goes?"

"You’ve got it." She took a hold of the strings and pulled, just enough that I felt it but not enough that I couldn’t breathe. "Hold on just one minute, and we’ll have you all done up."

True to her word, she was quick about it. I was surprised how the corset pushed my skin up and gave me the appearance of breasts. Just as she was about to hand me the hoop, she dropped it and put a hand to her head. "Oh God, it’s so awful."

I shook my head. I didn’t know what she was talking about. "What’s the matter, Caroline?" I put my arm around her.

"My head? It’s hurting so bad. Make it stop. Oh, make it go away."

Chapter 11

I lead her over to the chair. She started to cry and put her face in her hands. I patted her back, and soon, she looked up at me. Her face was haunted with shadows under her normally laughing eyes. She dug in her purse, pulled out a bottle of pills and dry swallowed two of them.

"Please don’t tell anyone about this. I don’t want to worry anyone. My headaches have been getting worse and worse. Sometimes I even see and hear funny things while they’re going on."

"What have you been seeing and hearing?"

"I don’t really know what I’m hearing. I’ve always seen strange things during the migraines, but never heard anything until now."

"Did year anything this time?"

"I heard crying but it could have been the blood rushing in my ears. Those pills help a lot. My momma has migraines and so does Grammy."

Grammy’s voice reached us. "Come on girls, quit gossiping, and let’s get this show on the road."

Gabriella giggled at my cringing at Grammy referring to us as girls. She dried her eyes and squared her shoulders. "Can you tell I’ve been crying?"

"A little. Just blame it on all the dust in here."

"I’ll just say I have a headache. Please don’t tell anyone about this. I don’t want to worry the family," she repeated.

I promised her I wouldn’t. Caroline begged off, explaining that she was having one of her migraines.

"Oh, bless your heart. Those are so bad. I was just hoping you’d help with Leigha’s dance lessons, but you go on and lay down if you feel bad."

The look on Caroline’s face showed she was debating whether to give into the guilt trip Grammy gave her or do what she needed to do. The necessity to get some rest must have won, because she decided to go lay down for a while. I barely noticed what any of them were saying to me as the seamstress fitted me for the dress. The dress was beautiful and reminded me of the one I wore on the night my parents died, except this one was green satin instead of velvet with gold trim. As I looked down at myself, I had to admit it was beautiful, but I had more pressing concerns than how I looked in a ball gown. Like how to break a curse and why my memories were suddenly changing to those of a girl.

"We don’t have time to make you a new gown for the ball," Grammy said. "Do you mind wearing this one?"

"What?" I exclaimed. "I thought this was just for a picture."

My grandmother’s eyes were pleading. "Please do this for me and I’ll never ask you to do it again. I swear."

I relented and would never admit that the thought of wearing a dress my momma had worn did not bother me as much is it did when I was first asked to wear it for the portrait. It made me feel closer to her somehow. When the seamstress was finished, she helped me change back into my own clothes, carefully removing the dress, hoops, and corset and leaving them in the fitting room. When I came back out, Bailey waited for me next to Grammy. She had set up a radio on the raised area at the side of the ballroom. It wasn’t really a stage because it wasn’t that high off the ground, but it looked like the place where a band might play.

Grammy must have read my mind because she said, "Today, you’re going to learn with some recorded music, but we’ll have a live band the night of the ball. We always do."

She instructed Bailey and I to stand in front of each other. She then said she was going to teach us to do the Virginia Reel. We were going to be the head couple and learn the steps first.

"We line up men on one side," she gestured to Bailey, "and women on the other." Grammy said as she gestured toward me. "We usually do it in groups of six or seven couples. Each couple dances in, bows to each other and then dances back to the starting place."

My look was questioning but my wonderful girlfriend smiled and shook her head. She knew something I didn’t. I knew she’d tell me later so I let it go.

Grammy went to the radio, and Irish sounding music started to play. I tapped my foot, well aware I wasn’t really keeping to the beat. Grammy frowned down at my feet and then showed me how it was done. Bailey was able to match her steps quickly. She showed us how the head man and the foot lady danced down the line and then went back to their starting places. Then, we do-si-do’d with each other. I remembered this one from a square dancing unit in PE, and it was part of the dance I was actually able to do right off the bat.

Grammy watched us performing for a few minutes, nodding and smiling when we got it right and frowning and making a clucking noise when it got it wrong. She finally stopped us. "It’s hard to get it exactly right when we don’t have everyone lined up, but I think you’ve got it. I’ll teach you one more dance, and maybe Bailey can help you pick up some of the others the night of the dance since she’s such a fast learner." She smiled at her.

The next dance she taught was the waltz, and we learned it to the tune of "The Tennessee Waltz," which I always enjoyed hearing. My Granny and Papa often played the song and danced for me in their living room, so I was familiar with some of the steps. Bailey naturally took the lead and led me through the steps. Grammy smiled through the whole thing and soon said we were finished.

"I think you’re getting better at learning to dance. You figured this one out quickly," she said. "I don’t think you’ll have anything to worry about at the ball."

I hadn’t been worried about anything before she brought up the lessons. I hadn’t really planned to dance at the ball, but I also had not planned on attending it in a gown. I knew if I didn’t dance she’d be embarrassed. She’d be embarrassed if I did dance and messed up. I knew she worried about how things looked. My thoughts had centered on dressing up and spending time with Bailey, not on the dance steps we were going to do or how we would look doing them.

Grammy left us alone. Bailey and I were planning to go back to her cottage. We strolled out to the front porch arm in arm and then saw my Uncle Casey in the porch swing. He invited me to join him. Bailey said we could talk later before she led us to him and left for the cabin. He asked me the question I had heard from everyone. "Are you sure you don’t remember anything about that night?"

I related the story again and decided to ask him some questions. If he and Momma were really best friends, he might know some of the answers to the questions that were now swirling around in my head.

"Can I ask you some questions about Momma?" I asked. He nodded, so I plowed ahead. "In the days before the…well, before it all happened, did she mention anything strange going on?"

His eyes widened. "How did you know?"

"Know what?"

"Your mom said she had been hearing crying inside her head, along with voices telling her the family was doomed or something like that. She also said Gabriella had come to her in her dreams, but she could never make out what she was saying."

"How long before did it happen?"

"She told me about it a few days before the ball. I just figured she was stressed out from taking care of you and building the house. She also had recently started a full-time job as a social worker. She was planning to see a doctor about the migraines, too. The women in this family seem prone to them. I just thought it was all getting to her." He ran a hand over his face. "Ever since then, I’ve wondered if I had told someone would it have stopped it?"

I put a hand on his arm. "There’s no use beating yourself up about it. I don’t think anything would have stopped it."

He turned to face me again. "Why? Do you know something you’re not telling me?"

"I think something must happen to the women in our family to cause them to do this." Caroline hadn’t mentioned anything about hearing voices or someone telling her we were doomed, so it wasn’t exactly the same thing Momma had experienced. I decided not to mention it to Uncle Casey.

He nodded his head. "I think they just snap, but I’m not sure why." His expression changed to one of concern. "You don't suffer from migraines, do you?"

The question confused me as only wo… I sighed as I realized he was asking because he also thought of me as a girl. "No, I've never had one in my life."

I left him sitting on the swing, lost in his own thoughts and memories of that night. I went to the kitchen to talk to Miss Lena. I wanted to find out about the children of other victims first.

She had another hug and a cookie for me when I greeted her at the counter. I asked her if I could talk to her about something, and she readily agreed. "Miss Lena, what happened with the other children of those who died, especially the ones of those that happened while you were here? Are they still alive? Do they come around?"

She kneaded some dough and looked deep in thought. "Well, the one before your momma and daddy, that’d be Kate. She always come to the reunion." She wiped her hands on her apron. "You’ll get to meet her directly, and she’ll probably want to talk to you, too. The one before Kate, well, that’s Suzanne, and she don’t come round no more."

She worked the dough for a few more minutes, and I just sat in silence waiting for her to start in again. As she worked, she talked.

"She came for a couple of the reunions, and then for some reason nobody knows, she just quit coming. I’ll never forget hearing her come down the stairs one morning with her bags all packed declaring she’d never come back, and she ain’t."

"What about the one before that?"

"She dead." She shook her head. "She never got over what happened to her momma and daddy and killed herself when she was just 18. Poor little girl."

I wondered if I would be able to find the time to look up Suzanne and call her. Lena grinned at me and winked.

"I bet you might be able to find Suzanne on the Internet. Her married name’s Davis."

It was as if she read my mind. I gave her a kiss and left her to work on the bread for supper that night. Now that I had a first and last name for her, I was going to find her, and I was definitely going to talk to Kate when she arrived. I wanted to find out if her memories were similar to mine. Besides, I wanted to meet someone who had been through the same experience I had. No one else understood the pain of one of your parents killing the other, but I knew she would.

My next step was finding Uncle Kerry. I knew Bailey might be feeling neglected but getting into my parents’ room was very important to me. My uncle told me he could get me in there, and I was going to hold him to it. I wondered what momma had left behind, if there was anything I might want to keep, something that might help me to know her better. Going in there might also help jog my memory and help me to remember something, anything that happened that night.

Just as I was coming out of the kitchen, I met up with Uncle Kerry. He smiled at me, and I put my hand on his arm. "Is there any way you can get me into my parents’ room soon? I’d really like to go in there."

He nodded his head. "Just meet me at the door in about an hour, and I’ll let you in."

That would give me time to find Bailey and get the digital recorder ready for that room. I was hoping Uncle Kerry would let me keep the key so I could come and go in there as I pleased, but also so we could get the recorder back in the morning.

The path to Bailey’ cabin was deserted, but she waited for me at the door. Her face was deathly white, and she just shook her head at me.

Chapter 12

She grabbed my hand and pulled me into the cabin. "I was wrong. I don’t want to see a ghost, but I’ve already seen one so how can I not see it," she babbled. As she pulled me close. She was shivering and her skin was cold to the touch.

"Whoa, slow down. Tell me what happened."

"I think I saw Clarence. He was out of the path but kneeling down on the ground and crying. He turned to look at me and then moved right through me."

I held tight and comforted her. "It’s Ok. I don’t think the ghost here are scary, especially not Clarence."

She pulled me even closer to her, almost as if she wanted to melt into me. "It was as if I could feel his pain. Sadness, guilt…I don’t know what all filled me, and I felt like I’d never be happy again. He did something he wasn’t able to forget about."

I pulled away from Bailey. "Was he young or old?"

"He looked pretty old. I’d say around 60, but once people hit about 40, it’s hard for me to tell."

I stood up and paced the floor. "It had to be something that happened near the end of his life then. Maybe he’s the one who is causing all the murder-suicides."

Bailey frowned at me. "But why? If what I felt were the feelings he was going through, I’d never want to wish that on anyone."

"Maybe…but maybe something happens to spirits after they die. Maybe something makes them evil."

"Then why aren’t Gabriella and your parents evil?"

I kept pacing. "I don’t know. Maybe it just happens to people who have really strong feelings when they die. Something happens here, something besides the women in my family snapping," I said, thinking of what my Uncle Casey said. "It’s almost like the whole house is possessed and lets it happen, and then after it’s over with, they all just forget about it or pretend it never happens."

Bailey stopped me and tipped my chin up so that I was looking at her. "Do you really believe that, or are those your emotions talking for you?"

"I don’t know." Tears welled up in my eyes. "I just don’t want to believe my momma really did it. I want to find some other explanation."

"I know you do, and maybe there is one, but we have to think this through before we come up with some wild theory about it."

I wiped away my tears. I knew she was right, but I wasn’t going to let go of the idea right away. "I still think Clarence has something to do with it. I’m not going to let that go, but I won’t say anything about it yet."

I filled her in on what I had learned at the house, and she pulled out her laptop and searched for Suzanne Davis. She found her right away, and I wrote the number down. Maybe I would call her later that night when I was back in my room.

"Tell me what you know about the dance?" I asked.

Bailey laughed and it made me smile to see her becoming herself again. "Well, while you were getting fitted for your dress. Someone gave me a fitting for a suit. It looks like I’m going to be your boyfriend for the night."

I laughed as I imagined my girlfriend in an antebellum suit. "I bet you’re going to look hot." I then sighed and shook my head. "This is so weird. What is going on?"

My girlfriend shrugged. "It doesn’t really matter. In a few days you will have solved the mystery and we’ll be back home again. Let’s just think of it as another Halloween party.

"I guess so." I looked at my watch and realized we had to get back to the house to meet Uncle Kerry at my parents’ room. I dawdled on the path, part of me excited to be getting into the room, another, bigger part worried about the memories that might come.

As we came into the house, I saw the maids hurrying into the dining room and knew they were preparing for dinner. I also saw several people I hadn’t been introduced to walking around. They all stopped to look at us, and I wondered if they knew I was Elizabeth’s child. Was one of them Kate, the family member who had gone through the same thing I had?

As I climbed the staircase, excitement came over me, and I almost ran, dragging Bailey by the hand. Even though I knew bad memories might await me, I also knew I would get to see things that had belonged to my momma. Granny didn’t have anything of hers, just daddy’s stuff, and I wanted to see what was in there.

Uncle Kerry stood outside the door with the key in his hand. I gave him a hug when I saw it.

"Are you sure you’re ready for this?"

"He about drug me up the stairs," Bailey said. "I’d say he’s ready."

I laughed a little nervously. "I want to see what’s in there, but I don’t know if I’m ready for the memories."

"We’ll go in with you," Uncle Kerry said. "It will be Ok. I’m going to let you keep the key, but Grandpa thought you might not want to tell Grammy about it."

"Tell Grammy what?"

We all spun around. Uncle Kerry hid a nervous grin, and I wasn’t sure how to react. He walked over and put his arm around her. "Now, Momma, Leigha wants to see inside the room. Dad and I think we should let her."

Grammy stood without saying anything for a few minutes. I was about to say something when I caught the look on Uncle Kerry’s face. It told me to be quiet and wait. Finally, Grammy held her arms out to me, and when I moved in them, she gave me a big hug. "Of course you want to go in there. Go and look and take anything of your momma’s that you want." She wiped at her eyes. "But I…well, I just can’t do it yet. I hope you understand."

I told her I did, and as Uncle Kerry unlocked the door and then handed me the key, she turned to go down the stairs. As I pushed my way inside, I was surprised that no dark memories assaulted me. I was expecting the nightmare I had sometimes to come at me, but I just remembered jumping on the bed, momma brushing my hair, daddy reading me bedtime stories. I stroked the bed posts and saw the white jewelry box on top of the highboy dresser. Momma always took it down and picked out special pieces of jewelry whenever she and daddy were going out.

I lifted the lid and heard The Tennessee Waltz play. Momma’s engagement ring rested inside, along with a cross I knew she almost always wore. It wouldn’t have gone with her dress that night, so of course, she had left it in the box. I wasn’t sure why her engagement ring was there, and I picked it up.

Uncle Kerry moved to my side. "Your momma had lost a little weight since going back to work. She was afraid she’d lose it and had told Grammy she was taking it in the next week to have it sized."

It fit on my finger perfectly. I kept it there and put the cross necklace around my neck. After only a second of hesitation, I grabbed the whole jewelry box to take along with me. I didn’t feel bad about it. These things belonged to me; I deserved them as her child.

I brushed my hair out of my eyes and felt the wetness on my cheek. I hadn’t even realized I had started crying. On the nightstand beside the bed, a book rested open, pages down. It was by Stephen King. I now knew where I had inherited my love of horror novels. My hands brushed against the blue floral wallpaper. I remembered pretending I was blind and the raised surface on the walls was braille. I ran over to the window and pulled back the curtains. The view was of the swing, my parents’ favorite spot. I remembered looking out the windows many times, seeing them at the swing and running down to join them.

My eyes soon rested on the door I knew lead to the room where I slept when I lived there. I went over to it and turned the knob. It was unlocked, so I let myself in.

I suddenly remembered being in that bed right there and hearing screaming. My daddy said, "Elizabeth, you don’t want to do this."

I hadn’t heard any reply because I buried my head under the covers. A gunshot filled my head, and I covered my ears. I remembered reaching for the door. It opened it in time to see my momma's lifeless body falling across the bed as I felt someone’s arms go around me. I released a blood curdling scream as my knees buckled. Bailey had her arms around me, keeping me from falling to the floor with a worried look on her face.

"I’ll ok." I said while half sobbing. "I just remember hearing daddy say something." I filled her and Uncle Kerry in on the memory that had come to light.

"Maybe you’ll remember more if you come back and visit again," Uncle Kerry said.

I took a deep breath, blowing in and out for a few minutes. After I regained my wits, I took a look around the room. These walls were painted a rosy pink. A twin-sized canopy bed with a gauzy pink overhang rested in the center of the room. This was not a boy’s room yet I knew it was mine. Old dolls lay on the pillow of the bed, and I picked one up. Most of my stuff had gone to my Granny’s with me, but this doll, the one I always called Baby Bee Good, never made it for some reason. She was dressed in a bee costume, and I often slept with her at night. Granny had replaced it with another one when I hadn’t been able to sleep without it. This was another memento going with me.

Bailey held up the bag with the digital recorders in it. I wasn’t sure whether to tell Uncle Kerry about it or not but decided he might be the right one to say something to. "Uncle Kerry, Bailey and I want to try something."

"What’s that?"

"I want to leave a digital recorder in this room and see what it picks up."

He looked puzzled. "Why on Earth would you want to do that?"

"Because I think this room is haunted." I waited a minute for the words to sink in and then said, "We did some research, and people have had some success recording ghost sounds. We wanted to try it to see what would happen."

He looked skeptical. "I don’t know if you’ll get anything, but I don’t think it can hurt. I’d like to be around when you check it though."

I gave him a hug, grateful I had someone on my side. "I don’t think anyone else in the family needs to know right now. Grammy’s so against the idea of this place being haunted, and I don’t want to worry Grandpa about it."

"You’re probably right." He took my arm and lead me to the door of the little room. "You Ok now? Think you can face dinner with all these new people."

I nodded, looked back at my bed and knew I’d be back. I wanted to see what other memories the place would dislodge before I left. Bailey positioned the recorder in the same position the jewelry box had been in and turned it on. I locked the door behind me, not wanting anyone to spoil the tape, and put the key in my pocket.

Grandpa met us in the hallway with a worried look. "Are you ok? I heard someone scream and knew it was you." His entire body was shaking. "I've only heard that scream once before."

I nodded. "I am now. I just remembered everything when I wasn't expecting to."

He pulled me into his arms and kissed the top of my head. "I wish none of this ever happened."

"Me too Grandpa." I said as I held onto him. "Me too."

He shifted our position so that I was beside him with his arm around me. "Leigha, why don’t you come downstairs with me? There’s someone that wants to meet you."

Chapter 13

I took his arm to help him down the stairs. "Who is it?"

"Her name is Kate. Her parents were killed just like yours were. She wants to talk to you."

I pretended as though this was the first time I’d ever heard of her. "Really? I’d like to meet her, too." I handed the jewelry box and other items over to Bailey and asked her to put them in my room, then meet us downstairs.

Talking to Kate was high on my list of priorities, but even though I wanted to run down the steps, I matched my steps to my Grandpa’s.

"Your Uncle Kerry said you wanted to go in your parents’ room. I gave him the key. Did I make a mistake?"

"No sir, and Grammy knows I went, too. She caught us at the door and was ok with it. I took Momma’s jewelry box with me."

He patted my arm. "That’s just fine. It belongs to you anyway. I hope it wasn't as traumatic as it sounded."

I assured him that it wasn't. "Mostly, all that came to me were the good times we shared in there."

"That’s good, real good. I’m glad you have good memories of them instead of just ones from that night." He halted our progress down the steps as he turned to stare at me. "There was a lot more to your parents than just how they died. Lizzie was a doting mother and devoted wife. Robert's proudest accomplishment was being your father. We want people to think about how good they were instead of just focusing on the horror of that night."

Now I knew why my grandparents donated money in Momma’s memory and held the ball in her honor. It wasn’t that they were just blocking out what happened and pretending it never occurred. They wanted everyone to remember the good things about Momma. I kissed his cheek. "I think that’s great."

He patted my hand again and we began descending the stairs again. "We give a scholarship out to local girl who wants to major in social work. It’s given in your momma’s name. I know sometimes people look at us strange for it, but I don’t really care. At first the money we made from selling tickets to the ball went toward making sure you could go to any college you wanted. Now that we have more than enough for that, it goes toward the scholarship and the donation to the library in her name. Grammy didn’t know if we should do it or not, but I insisted. She was just worried about what everyone would think, but now she likes it. I think it helps her pretend like your parents died a natural death, not the horrible one they endured."

I squeezed his arm and gave him a smile. My eyes held unshed tears, and I didn’t trust my voice All the years I thought these grandparents didn't care about me, they were holding a ball to ensure my future would be secure. We finally made it to the dining room, and as I wiped at my eyes, he steered me over to a woman with the Forsythe red hair. Lines skimmed the corners of her eyes, showing me she laughed a lot, but I also saw sadness lurking there. She was thin like most of the other women in the family and wore a fashionable summer jumpsuit. I felt underdressed around her, too, in my jeans and t-shirt. Grandpa introduced us, and Kate hugged me.

"Do you think we could sit together at supper? I have a lot I want to talk to you about."

"I’d love that. I want to talk to you, too." She squeezed my hand and went to talk to some other people. Bailey joined me, and when Grandpa announced dinner, Kate walked over to sit beside me. They said grace, then passed the food around the table just as they had the other nights. Only this time, the main table was filled as were several of the peripheral tables in the room.

I introduced Kate and Bailey. I decided to ask her the question everyone else had been asking me since I arrived. "Do you remember anything about the night your parents died?"

"I saw it happen. It took a lot of therapy to get rid of the nightmares, but I don’t have them much anymore at all," she said, a sad expression on her face. "I can’t remember what was said between them though. I just opened the door in time to see Momma shoot daddy and then shoot herself."

"So you’re absolutely positive that your momma did it then?" I shook my head, disappointed. "I didn’t see it actually happen, or at least, I don’t think I did. Just the aftermath."

"Yes, I’m sure she did." She looked around and whispered. "But I’m not sure it was her idea."

"What’s that supposed to mean?" I frowned. "Who do you think put her up to it?"

"I don’t know. I know she wasn’t in her right mind when it happened. Maybe she had multiple personalities. We all remember her acting funny in the days before. Someone else told me once she had mentioned not feeling well physically either."

I decided to share one of my theories with her. "I think it has something more to do with ghosts than with mental illness."

"Ghosts?" Kate's expression betrayed her skepticism.

My ponytail swished as I nodded vigorously. "Yes. This house is haunted."

"I knew that, but you think the ghosts did it? I actually saw my mother shoot my father, so I know it wasn’t ghosts."

We had been whispering and then I noticed people looking at us. I just shook my head at her and mouthed later to her. I wasn’t ready to share it with anyone other than those few I had already told. When everyone had turned back to their food, I began talking to Kate again. "How did you handle it? Knowing your momma had done that?"

"Well, I told you about the therapy. That helped a lot. I also knew Momma would never have done it if she hadn’t been sick. But, at first, I felt like my entire world had been pulled away from me."

"I don’t remember that feeling at all." My voice was quiet but not quite a whisper. "Mostly, I just missed them."

"I had that, too, but maybe it’s because I stayed with my mother’s parents. My grandfather is your grandpa’s uncle. He died when I was 20."

"Did he take you out of the room that night? Grandpa was the one who found me and carried me out."

She nodded. "He was the first one on the scene. I was absolutely hysterical and then went into shock. I had to be taken to the hospital, too."

I had one more question for her. "Do you ever talk to Suzanne Davis?"

Kate shook her head. "The one before me? Not anymore. We kept in touch for a while, but eventually, she distanced herself completely from the family. She doesn’t even come to weddings and funerals anymore."

"I was wanting to talk to her, too."

"If you can find out her number, you might try talking to her." She put her napkin on the table, stood up and then leaned over to whisper in my ear. "I want to talk to you more about the ghost idea."

I nodded and told her which room I was staying in. "Why don’t you drop by there in an hour or so?"

***

Bailey sat at the desk in my room with my laptop open. I decided to call Suzanne before Kate came to the room. My fingers shook as I dialed the number. When she answered, I almost hung up.

"Hello…hello, is anyone there?"

"Um, yes, did you used to be Suzanne Forsythe?"

"Who is this?"

"My name is Leigh Stone. My mother was Elizabeth Forsythe."

"Oh." Silence hung on the line for a few minutes. "I’ve wondered if you would call me someday."

"I’m at my mother’s parents’ home for the first time since their deaths. I wanted to talk to someone else who had experienced it." My hands still shook, but I wasn’t as scared about her hanging up as I was before.

"Kate will be there. Why don’t you talk to her?"

"I did, but I wanted to talk to another person, too. Do you remember anything about that night?"

"I don’t like talking about it." Suzanne sighed. "I understand why you felt the need to call me, but I don’t know how much help I can give you."

"I know. Even if you don’t want to talk about that night, can you tell me why you haven’t come back to the house? Did something weird happen to you?"

"How did you know?"

I wished I could see her face and her reactions. "Well, everyone knows the house is haunted, but I guess I’ve experienced something more than anyone else has. I wondered if you might have, too."

"I have never told anyone else this, not even my husband." She laughed, a slightly bitter sound. "I think I was scared they’d all think I was crazy like my mother or something."

"I don’t think you’re crazy and won’t even after you tell me." I stood up and paced the floor, waiting for her to tell me what happened.

"My mother and father came to me one night. They told me that there was more to the story than what happened." Her voice cracked, and I could hear the tears through the line.

"Did they ask you to figure out what it was?"

"Yes, they did. How could you…Did your parents come to you, too?"

I nodded, even as I said yes. "They also came to my Granny, my father’s mother. That’s the only reason she let me come this year. I’m trying to figure out what really did happen."

"I just thought I was crazy. I was so scared I was going to snap, and a part of me was afraid the house was what was doing it to me. I decided not to come back."

"I did the opposite. It drove me back here." I heard her sobbing on the line and gave her time to stop. When she quieted down, I said, "I thought I was dreaming at first, but I had to find out. Now, I’m almost positive I wasn’t."

"Why do you think that?"

"It’s really too much to go into over the phone." I wasn’t like the normal teenager. I hated talking on the phone, but like most others my age, I did like texting. "Is there any way you would consider coming back to the house this year?"

Again, she was silent for a while. I finally asked if she was there, and she said, "Yes, I’m here. I think I’ll do it. My husband has often wondered why I stopped attending the family reunion or any other family functions. I’ll be there tomorrow."

"I know everyone would be glad to see you, especially Miss Lena. She’s who first told me about you."

"I'm glad to hear she is still around. I loved Miss Lena. I’ll be so glad to see her and everyone else, too. I’m retired, so it won’t be any trouble for me to come." She sniffled. "I’m so glad you called me."

"Me too. I’ll let them know you’re coming."

We hung up, and I filled Bailey in on what she had told me. I was happy she was going to come. Maybe after Kate heard everything we'd discovered and some of my theories, she would be helpful to us, too. I walked over to hug Bailey, and a knock sounded at the door.

Chapter 14

I opened the door and let Kate in. She entered with a smile on her face. "Y’all make me feel like teenagers conspiring."

"Well, we are teenagers," I said and laughed. "And, I guess we are conspiring. The only one who knows about my ghost theory besides you and now Suzanne, is Uncle Kerry."

"Suzanne? Did you call her?"

I filled her in on what I had learned. Suzanne seeing her parents further strengthened my idea that the murder-suicides in our family had more to do with ghosts than with insanity. Her story just added one more piece of evidence to an already growing list of items that tipped the scales for me.

"What else has happened to make you think it’s all to do with the paranormal? Besides your parents coming to you and Suzanne’s to her?"

I told her I didn’t have much else to go on. I just knew the house was haunted, and there seemed to be a secret with the ghosts, especially Clarence. Bailey told her about what happened to her on the trail.

"He did something he was ashamed of, something horrible, but I have no idea what," she said.

"So what do you think happens?" Kate asked.

"I don’t really know. For a little while this afternoon, I thought maybe Clarence’s ghost somehow did it, but if you saw your mother do it." I searched the memory that was unlocked this afternoon. While it was painful to relive the experience, I owed it mine and Kate's parents to do so if it meant finding an answer. "And I can't remember anyone else being in the room when it happened to my mother, then I know that’s not it"

She stood up and paced the floor. "How are you going to find out for sure?"

"Well, I don’t know that I will, but I’m sure going to try. Bailey looked up information about paranormal research and found out that sometimes you can record ghosts on tape recorders. I put one in my parents’ room. I’m also going to put one in here."

She laughed again, her eyes not as sad as they were earlier in the night. "If we can prove that mom wasn’t responsible for her actions, I’m all for it. I want to be there when you listen to the tapes."

I told her that Uncle Kerry wanted to be there, too, and that I thought we should wait for Suzanne to come. She agreed. She also said she was going to do some research on the paranormal to see if there were other ways to gather information on ghosts or other types of hauntings.

"I’ve never really thought about any of this, even though I knew this place was haunted and have seen the ghosts. Now I’m curious about it all." Kate said.

I laughed. "Anything you find out will be helpful to us." I pointed to Bailey then back at myself. "We’re beginners, too."

We promised not to listen to the tapes until Suzanne got there the next day. She left to go to her room, and I said goodnight to Bailey. As I crawled into bed, some of the excitement left me, and tears filled my eyes. I was afraid we were doing all of this for nothing, that we would never find out a reason for it. I needed comforting and thought about going to find Bailey in her cabin, but I wasn’t in the mood to see a ghost that night. I took out my phone and texted David. I waited 15 minutes, and he never answered me back. He was probably with his girlfriend. I decided to call my Granny.

Just hearing her voice made me smile. We exchanged a few words before she said, "Ok, honey, what’s up? Why are you calling me?"

She always knew when something was wrong, and I broke down. I explained to her what I was feeling. "What if I’m wrong? What if all of these murder-suicides have happened just because the women went crazy?"

"If that’s the case, there’s nothing you can do about it. You know you’re not insane, and no one thinks you are. You’ll come home and go on with your life, but you’ll have also gained new family members who you love."

She was right, again. Just as she knew when something was wrong, she almost always knew just the right thing to say, too. "I love you, Granny. I hope I can prove Momma didn’t do it."

"And I love you, and I hope that, too." Her voice was gentle as she said. "You go on to sleep, and you’ll feel better in the morning. I promise."

I already felt better. I set the recorder on the dresser and hit record. The bed called my name, and I snuggled down into the covers. Just as I was drifting off to sleep, I heard a feminine voice fill my ear. "This family will never know happiness as long as I never know peace."

Somehow I knew it was Gabriella. What did she mean: never know peace? They had disappeared. No one knew what happened to them. While I lay there thinking, the idea came to me that if we figured out what happened to Gabriella and Garrett, we’d probably discover the reasons behind the murder-suicides. The question was, how do you figure out a mystery that happened 155 years ago?

***

The next morning, I explained to Grammy and Grandpa I talked to Suzanne the night before and that she was coming to the reunion and for the ball. Grammy hugged me and asked, "What did you say to make her change her mind about staying away from the family?"

I wasn’t ready to divulge to her the secrets I shared with Suzanne, so I just said, "I told her I needed another person here who had experienced what I went through. She decided to come."

Grammy took it at face value, but Grandpa gave me a look that told me he knew what I was saying wasn’t the truth. However, he didn’t say a word or even question me about it. As we were sitting down to breakfast, Uncle Kerry approached me and asked about the tape recorders. I explained we wanted to wait until Suzanne arrived to listen.

"I think the best place to do it is in Bailey’ cabin," I whispered. "I don’t think we’ll be overheard there."

He nodded and ran a hand through his strawberry blonde hair. "I agree. I hope this wasn’t a waste of time for all of us."

"I don’t think it will be. I heard a voice last night. I’m hoping it will be on the tape."

Bailey joined us for breakfast, and later, we waited on the front porch in the heat and humidity for Suzanne to arrive. Other family members approached me to introduce themselves as we stayed there, and I knew I’d never remember all their names.

Kate soon came outside and joined us on the swing. She smiled, and this time it reached her eyes. A feeling of peace exuded from her, and I knew she had experienced something the night before. I was right.

"I dreamed about my parents last night," she said. "They told me to help you figure out what is going on, and my mom said it had to do with the ghosts in the house. She promised me she hadn’t meant to kill my father."

"Are you sure it wasn’t their ghosts?" I asked.

She shrugged her shoulders. "I don’t know. I thought I was asleep, but I reckon it could have been. No one has ever said anything about seeing their ghosts here, though."

"That doesn’t mean they aren’t here," Bailey said. "We can’t know all of the secrets of this old house."

"You’re probably right. All I know is that I feel a lot more at ease about doing this, and I no longer blame my mother for killing my father. I can’t describe exactly what the dream was like, but it was as real as anything I’ve experienced in my lifetime."

"Mine was very dreamlike," I said, "but I knew afterwards that I had to figure out what was going on. My parents came to my Granny, too, and she also said it gave her a sense of peace about what happened. She doesn't blame my mother for it anymore either."

A woman with graying red hair walked up the steps to the porch. She turned to look at me and then at Kate. "I know you, Kate, but are you Leigha? I’m Suzanne."

"I'm Leigh." I said as I got to my feet.

The three of us hugged. It was as if we were members of a club only a few had joined. One which no one wanted to be a member. When we drew apart, all of us had tears in our eyes.

Suzanne looked at Kate and I and said, "I dreamed of my parents again last night. They told me I was doing the right thing by coming here and that we were all looking in the right direction."

Kate shared her dream with Suzanne. Suzanne said she wanted to go in and see Grammy and Grandpa and would find Uncle Kerry so we could all listen to the tapes from the rooms. Bailey, Kate and I went to my parents’ room and got that recorder. I already had the one from my room.

By the time we got back out to the porch, Suzanne and Uncle Kerry waited on us. We walked back to Bailey’ cabin in silence. I think we were all excited and nervous about listening to the tapes. I know I thought we’d hear something, but I also was afraid we wouldn’t. I didn’t want to look like a fool in front of all them, especially Suzanne, since I had talked her into coming back to the house and essentially back into the family.

Bailey and I sat on the bed, and the others took chairs in the room. My girlfriend grabbed a pencil and a notepad from her laptop bag and gave them to Uncle Kerry. "Why don’t you make notes of what we hear the first time we listen to it? Then, we’ll compare it to what we all think we heard and maybe listen to it again."

Uncle Kerry nodded, a frown on his face. I didn’t know if he was annoyed, thinking this was a huge waste of time, or if he was afraid of what he might hear. Bailey grabbed the recorder from my room, and we decided we’d listen to it first.

What I heard last night played about five minutes into the tape. A low whispering repeated the words, "This family will never know happiness as long as I never know peace."

Chapter 15

Uncle Kerry gasped and started writing on the pad. Suzanne and Kate both stared at me, their eyes wide. A few minutes later, the same voice whispered again, "We have to leave during the day and then hide out to wait for nightfall."

At least, I think that’s what she said. The voice was low, and the tape sounded scratchy. I wondered if it was the recorder or if this was the way most EVT recordings sounded. More sounds followed, although I couldn’t always make them out. Uncle Kerry kept writing every time the recorder played something, and after an hour, I pushed the stop button.

"Are y’all hearing the same things said over and over again?" I asked. "That’s what it sounds like to me."

Everyone nodded, and Uncle Kerry looked up from the notepad. "Here’s what I think was said." He repeated what I heard the night before and then the part about leaving during the day. "Next, I heard it say, ‘Papa must never know," and ‘We have to come back and get Samuel and Harriet.’ And then, it replays over and over again."

Suzanne and Kate agreed. I jumped up from the bed. "Who was saying that? And, who is Samuel and Harriet? Uncle Kerry, do you ever remember hearing about any family members with those names?"

He shook his head. "There might be a distant cousin named Samuel, but no direct member of the family, no one who had lived in the house anyway."

I paced the floor, thoughts running through my head. It hit me. Gabriella and Garrett and the underground railroad. I shared with them the theory Grandpa had about them. "It’s Gabriella talking to Garrett working out a plan to get two slaves away from the plantation. I just know it."

"But what does it mean that this family will never know happiness until she knows peace? What happened to her that is keeping her from being peaceful?" Kate asked.

"I don’t know," I said. "I think we have to figure that out, and if we do, these murder-suicides will stop."

Uncle Kerry looked lost in thought and soon said, "I’m just not sure what to think. All these years, we’d blamed it on genetics, some sort of family history of insanity, and now, I’m hearing ghostly voices on tape recorders. Maybe I’m the insane one."

Suzanne touched his arm. "If you are, then we all are. We all heard it."

"One way to prove that it was Gabriella’s voice is to find out whose room I’m staying in," I said. "Uncle Kerry, do you think you can ask Grammy about that? Also, do you know if there are any records to the name of the slaves that were here around the time that Gabriella and Garrett disappeared?"

Uncle Kerry nodded. "Yes to both but I'm going to ask Dad. He can find out if there really was a Samuel and a Harriet."

Bailey looked at her watch. "They’re going to be expecting us back at the house in about an hour for lunch. Let’s listen to the tape from Leigh’s parents’ room and then go back to the house. We can meet up later to see what Kerry has found out."

We all sat back down in our original positions, Uncle Kerry’s pen poised over the notepad. Bailey started the recorder and before long, we all heard a voice. Uncle Kerry gasped and mouthed to me, "Your momma." I knew it was her voice, too. Unfortunately, I couldn’t make out what she was saying. Then, I heard my father’s voice clearly. "Elizabeth, you don’t want to do this."

My momma said, "I’m not…" The rest wasn’t audible, just hisses and scratches. This played out over and over again for 30 minutes. Nothing else was said. Bailey turned the recorder off.

"Did anyone make out what the first thing the female voice said?" Uncle Kerry said. "I heard something about avenging her death or something of the sort."

I shook my head. "I couldn’t even hear that. I’m not sure what she said at all then."

Uncle Kerry repeated the rest of what he heard. His face was pale. "That was your father’s voice, too. I just know it. I wish we could have heard the rest of what your momma was about to say."

"If we heard that, we might know more about what happens the nights the curse occurs," Kate said. "What was she going to say? ‘I’m not going to do anything…’ or ‘I’m not going to listen…’ Ugh, it could be anything."

"We could go insane ourselves guessing," Suzanne said. "It won’t do any good at all."

"I’ll spend some time tonight listening to more of both tapes to see if I hear anything else," Bailey said. "I’ll wait until everything has quieted down and listen with my headphones."

Uncle Kerry stood up and put the notepad and pen on the bed. "I don’t need any more convincing. Anyone listening to these tapes would know something was going on in the house." He ran a hand through his hair. "My momma still won’t believe, but I think I’m going to say something about it to your grandpa."

I frowned. "Are you sure we should? Maybe we should wait until we get more information."

He nodded. "Why don’t we wait until after I see if your room was Gabriella’s and Garrett’s and if there were slaves here named Samuel and Harriet. I want to see if they disappeared at the same time Gabriella and Garrett did or if they were here afterward."

We left the cabin together, and I felt cold air settle over me. When I looked up, I saw Clarence kneeling on the path. I stopped everyone and pointed. We all stared, as he cried, one hand on the ground, the other over his eyes. Sadness washed over me, as did guilt and other emotions I couldn’t identify. Uncle Kerry’s face paled, his eyes wide. Suzanne and Kate both had their mouths open, their expressions of shock almost identical. Soon, he disappeared, and the heavy heat and humidity returned.

"Who was that?" Suzanne whispered.

"I think it was Clarence," I said. "He’s the only old man ghost I’ve heard about."

"My parents have a portrait of Clarence around here somewhere," Uncle Kerry said. "I’m sure it was him, but I’ll ask Dad about it and look to see. What was he so upset about? I don’t know a lot about his history at all."

"Why don’t we meet on the front porch after breakfast in the morning and go back to Bailey’s cabin so Uncle Kerry can fill us in what he finds out? Then, we can share if anything else has happened."

They all agreed, and we started our way back to the house. I was sure the curse had something to do with Clarence, Gabriella and Garrett, but my mind couldn’t figure out what exactly had happened. And why did what happen cause the women in our family to commit murder and then suicide? It was all so confusing, and I felt as though I would drive myself crazy trying to figure it out.

Grammy met me at the door as we walk in. She had a puzzled look on her face at all of us coming in together but didn’t say a word about it. She steered me toward the dining room as she said, "The portrait artist is here today. You’ll pose for her for a few sketches, and she can do the rest of the painting from those. It will just take an hour or so for her to do it."

She frowned as I sighed and asked, "Where will I be posing for it?"

"I thought the ball room would be nice. Sometimes we do it outside, but I think it’s just too hot today. Some of the decorations for the ball have already come in, so they will provide a nice backdrop."

I took my time eating lunch, dreading the trip to the ballroom and having to stand still for so long. The thought of getting back into the corset and hoops freaked me out a little, but I knew I had to get used to it, since I was going to have to wear them to the ball in a few days. Kate and Suzanne chatted with me about the ball and both said their husbands would be joining them on Saturday, as they couldn’t get any more time off. Kate’s children were also coming, and I looked forward to meeting them.

Grammy dragged me away as soon as my plate was clean. Caroline followed behind us as she was going to help me get into the dress again. She was all smiles as we went into the fitting room, the corset and hoop in her hands. The strange incident from the other day entered my head, and I asked her, "Have you had anymore headaches lately?"

She laughed. "It was so strange that day, but no, I haven’t. The more I think about it, I really do believe I was just hearing the blood rushing in my ears, not someone crying." She patted my arm. "Don’t worry about me. You just enjoy your time here."

A friend of mine at school often suffered from migraines, and she told me she often saw strange things when she had one. It stood to reason that they could also cause you to hear them as well. I decided to take Caroline’s advice and not worry about her.

Caroline helped me get into the corset and the hoop. The experience was every bit as unpleasant as before. The dress hung on a hanger, and after I got that on, she climbed in a chair to do my hair. I regretted all the times I ignored my Papa when he suggested I get hair cut as she pulled the sides up and left the rest to cascade down before she took a curling iron to it and made something she called banana curls to hang loose. She also did my face using her own make-up since I obviously didn’t have any of my own. "You don’t want to look washed out," she explained.

When she finished, I embarrassingly walked out to the ballroom and posed by one of the pillars the decorators had set up. The portrait artist sketched for about 45 minutes, turning me one way and then another. During this time, I thought about what we had found out, which really wasn’t all that much. The more I concentrated on it, the more frustrated I became. We weren’t really any closer to solving the mystery than we had been before.

The last 15 minutes consisted of the artist taking several pictures of me with her digital camera. She talked to Grammy for a few minutes and then left. Caroline went with her, leaving me and Grammy alone in the ballroom. I turned to go into the fitting room, sure that Grammy was going to help me out of the dress, when I heard a gasp behind me. I spun around and saw my parents dancing through the ballroom. Grammy had her hand over mouth with tears in her eyes.

Chapter 16

They danced for several minutes, as Grammy and I watched, not saying a word. I walked over to her and took her hand, giving it a squeeze as we observed my parents blissfully swaying all over the ballroom. My momma looked beautiful wearing the exact dress I had on, her hair styled just as mine was today. She often smiled up at Daddy, and his eyes met hers many times. They looked so in love that I couldn’t help but cry myself. How I wished I could have had them in my life, just as they were in front of me now.

After a while, they danced away in a mist. I looked over at Grammy and said, "Please don’t say you didn’t see them, because I know you did."

"I saw them." She wiped away her tears. "I know the family thinks I’m silly for pretending this place doesn’t have its ghosts, but I don’t like to think about it."

"Why? It gives me a sense of comfort to know they are still here, watching over me."

"Everyone already sees me as the mother of the lady who snapped and killed her husband. If I start endorsing these stories of ghosts, I’ll be seen as crazy myself. I don’t think I could stand that."

"What would you say if I told you that I think there’s more to the story than Momma just snapped and killed Daddy? And what if a ghost have something to do with it?"

"That’s just crazy, foolish talk. You need to get that notion right out of your head. I don’t know what happens on the nights those tragedies occurred, but it certainly didn’t have anything to do with ghosts," she said angrily.

Her words stung, but I ignored the hurt feelings and pressed on. "I’m gathering proof right now, and I will figure out what happened. I know Momma wouldn’t have done it." I told her how my parents appeared to me and what they said. "I’m going to solve this mystery if it’s the last thing I do."

"You just dreamed your parents came to you," she said and turned to the door. "I don’t want to hear another word about it, and I don’t want you to tell anyone else either. Not another word of this nonsense, understood?"

She left me alone before I could tell her about everyone else’s involvement. She also didn’t help me out of the dress, so I was stuck doing that alone. By the time I struggled out of the dress, corset and hoop, tears rolled down my cheeks. My Granny had never been that mean to me, and I wouldn’t have expected it from what I knew of my Grammy. I just wanted to go to my room and be alone. As I was running to it, I bumped into someone and looked up to see Grandpa standing there. He put his hands on my shoulders and steered me into his study.

We sat down on the couch, and I cried on his shoulder. He took a handkerchief from his back pocket and dried my tears for me, just as I imagined he would have when I had been a little kid. I sniffed and stopped the tears. He finally said, "I bet you had a run in with your Grammy, right?"

I nodded my head but didn’t say anything.

"You look just like your momma did when she and Grammy had a fight," he said. "What was it about?"

I didn’t know whether to share the secret or not. I hadn’t really meant to tell Grammy about it, but her denials of the ghost in the house pushed me to it. It was probably time he knew. "We saw Momma and Daddy’s ghost in the ballroom."

"Oh? Did she pretend like she didn’t see them?"

I shook my head. "No, not exactly." I shared with him what she said and then told him what I believed about the nights when a murder-suicide happened. "She told me not to say another word about it and not tell anyone else either, but what she doesn’t know is Bailey, Uncle Kerry, Kate and Suzanne are all involved in solving the mystery."

He stood up and paced in front of the big stone fireplace behind the couch. I turned around in my seat so I could see him. His eyes showed me he was working on remembering something. "So, you think the ghosts have something to do with it?"

"Yes sir, I’m almost positive it has something to do with Gabriella and Garrett’s disappearance, but I don’t know how."

He rubbed his chin and leaned against the polished mantel. "That makes sense then. The night your parents died, I rushed into the room to see what happened and to check on you. As soon as I reached their room, I heard a strange mixture of laughter and sobbing. When I opened the door, there stood Gabriella, and she was the one making those sounds. I’ve never said a word about it before now."

The wheels in my mind started turning again. Even though Kate had seen her mother do it, did Gabriella sometimes commit the murder? How could a ghost lift a gun, much less make it go off? I needed to do some research about paranormal phenomena to see if that would be possible. "Did she say or do anything?"

"No, just the laughing and crying at the same time. She disappeared as soon as I entered the room, and I didn’t stop to pay that much attention. I wanted to see about your parents and get you out of there."

I stood up and joined him by the fireplace. "This is so confusing. The more I hear, the more I believe this is some kind of curse caused by the ghosts here, but I can’t figure out how it all goes together. We’re missing something."

I told him what we had been doing with the tape recorders and what we had heard on them. He had already talked to Uncle Kerry earlier and was going to help him go back through some of the plantation records to find the information he was looking for.

"If you find anything else, let me know," he said. "I want to be kept informed about this. Don’t worry about your Grammy. She’s not really mad at you; the whole ghost thing just scares her."

"I know. I just wasn’t expecting her to fuss at me like she did," I said. "Besides, I was hoping she would keep an open mind about all of it."

"Until you have irrefutable proof that the ghosts were the ones who have caused this, your Grammy won’t believe it. Well, she might believe it, but she isn’t ever going to admit she does. She doesn’t want anything to make the family look bad, and she thinks if we admit the place is haunted, folks will think even worse of us than they do."

"I don’t think anyone really thinks bad about the Forsythe family," I said. "Y’all have donated time and money to all kinds of things over the years."

"I know. I’ve tried to tell your Grammy that. I know some people see us as the family that goes crazy every now and again, but people around here don’t think much about anyone being crazy as long as they don’t bother them. Most families have a crazy relative anyway. They’re used to it." He smiled at me.

I left his study and went to my room. I paced the floor, all of the information racing through my mind. I just knew Gabriella was behind the murder-suicides. I just didn’t know how or why. Where did Garrett fit into this? What happened to them the night they disappeared? And what was Clarence’s secret? What had he done to cause him to feel such guilt and sadness? If I figured out the answers to these questions, I knew we would have the mystery of the curse solved.

My first thought went to whether a ghost could commit murder. I grabbed my laptop case and slipped the computer out. I was glad the plantation had Wi-Fi available, so I could quickly find the information I needed. Google was my friend again, and I soon found out that while no ghost had ever committed murder, some had been able to move objects around a house. However, it was thought it took a lot of energy, so it didn’t happen very much. This search led me to poltergeist, but I was almost positive this had nothing to do with them. That particular phenomena usually happened in a home with a teenager, and that wasn’t the case here.

I also found definitions of residual and intelligent hauntings. A residual haunting was a ghost that did the same thing over and over again, like a recording. Well, some information even went so far as to say it isn’t really a ghost but merely a playback of an event caused by energy. You can’t interact with a residual haunting. It sounded to me like Clarence was one, and he looked, felt and acted like a ghost to me, so that’s what I was going to call him.

An intelligent haunting is one where the ghost interacts with the present time. These ghosts can communicate with people and even give them messages. While I hadn’t been able to communicate with Gabriella yet, I was sure she was an intelligent haunting and the communication would come later.

Another area of paranormal research that popped up was ghostly possession. This piqued my interest because maybe Gabriella possessed the woman, made her shoot her husband and then kill herself. In fact, this theory made much more sense than Gabriella herself doing the shooting, since Kate had actually witnessed the event and didn’t mention seeing a ghost. I took out my notebook and wrote down a few things I wanted to share with everyone when we met the next day.

Just as I was putting my laptop away, a knock sounded at the door. I opened it to find Grammy standing there.

Chapter 17

"May I come in?" She asked.

I nodded and opened the door wider. She came in and sat down in the chair across from the bed. I made myself comfortable on my bed and looked at her, wondering what she wanted to say.

"I came here to apologize to you," she said as she stared in my eyes. "I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that."

"I accept your apology," I said because I hated being upset with anyone I cared about, "but I’m not going to stop trying to find a reason why this curse has been happening to our family all these years."

"I’m not asking you to stop. I just don’t want you mentioning it to a bunch of people. Please just keep it to yourself." She got up, sat down beside me on the bed and put her arm around me. "I never really thought about how all of this would affect you. It’s only natural for you to want to find a reason why this happened. We all wonder about it."

"Of course I wonder. I only have good memories of my momma. None that would make me think she could kill my father and then turn the gun on herself. I refuse to believe that my momma, the woman who gave birth to me, the woman who bathed me every night, the woman who sat beside my daddy as he read me bedtime stories, the woman who held me in her lap laughing as daddy pushed us in a swing." Tears were streaming down my face and it was getting hard to speak, "I refuse to believe that woman would leave me willingly and take my daddy with her."

"Oh Leigha." Grammy said with tears of her own streaming down her face. "I don't believe for second that she was in her right mind when she did this. She loved you more than anything on this earth but I don't think some silly ghost did it.

I shrugged away from her and stood up. "Something is going on here. For the past 150 years or more, a woman kills her husband and then herself."

"I know the family history."

I put my hands on my hips and looked down at her. "Well, don’t you think that’s weird? Doesn’t it seem strange that every 15 to 20 years, a Forsythe woman just suddenly, out of the blue, loses her mind, when it’s totally out of character for her and nobody would have ever thought she’d do it? I don’t understand why no one has ever tried to figure it out before now. I just don’t get you people."

She looked at me, a calm expression on her face. I wondered how many teenage fits she had faced from her own children. "I think the only curse the Forsythe family faces is one of insanity. I don’t believe any of these deaths have been caused by ghosts." I knew she was lying. I could see it in her eyes.

Even though I once thought this myself, I knew I had to dispute her. "Mental illness usually shows much earlier in life than late 20s, early 30s. Besides, y’all would have seen some kind of signs from these women before it happened."

"I don’t know then." She stood up beside me. "I don’t know what happens. I don’t know how to stop it, so I can’t worry about it. I’m not going to try to stop you from trying to solve this mystery, but I am never going to be able to make myself believe that a ghost murdered two people."

"It’s a lot more than two people," I said. "I’ve met two women whose parents died, so that makes six. I also know of another girl who killed herself after this happened to her parents. If you include her, that makes nine. Those are just the ones in recent memory. I found newspaper stories of ones that happened in the 1800s. How many more people have to die before you’ll want to do something?"

"If I could do something now to stop it, I would. What do you expect me to do?" She asked with her arms folded across her chest. "I got you out of here so it couldn’t happen to you too."

I remembered what Grandpa had told me about her believing it, but not admitting to it. I studied her face to see if she revealed anything there. If she believed it but was pretending not to, she was doing a terrific job of hiding it. I decided to let it go and apologize because fighting was hurting both of us.

I sighed. "I don’t like fighting with people I love," I said. "I’m sorry I fussed at you, too. Just please don’t try to stop me from what I’m doing."

She gave me a hug, which I returned. "I said I wouldn’t, and I won’t. I completely understand why you are doing this, and if it makes you feel better, go right ahead."

I knew I didn’t exactly have her blessings, but it wouldn’t have mattered to me even if she had forbidden me to do it. I owed it to my parents, to Kate and Susan’s parents, and all the other people who had been affected by the curse to figure out the truth.

As soon as Grammy left I rushed to Bailey’s cabin. I did not want to be alone. She frowned as soon as opened the door. "You’ve been crying."

I frowned, thinking I’d done a better job of hiding it. "How can you tell?"

She pulled me into her arms and held me tight. "Your mascara has runs in it. I guess you forgot to take it off after posing for your portrait."

I wiped my eye with the back of my hand and it came back with black smears on it. "Yeah well, I guess I forgot I had makeup on after Grammy and I saw my parents in the ballroom."

"What? How did she react?"

I told my girlfriend everything and she didn’t say anything as I shared all that happened after we parted ways.

***

I got up early the next morning, anxious to see if anyone had any more information. The night before had been a bit of a disappointment since none of the ghosts appeared to me. Seeing my parents dance through the ballroom had been wonderful to see, but I really wanted to talk to them again, to see if they could give me any advice or let me know I was on the right track.

I walked down to Bailey’s cabin to get her before breakfast. We planned to meet back there after everyone had eaten. Silence surrounded the plantation grounds. No school groups ran around, and the gardener must not have been up and working yet. I looked around at the modern cabins and wondered if this area had been slave quarters. Did something happen to one of the slaves that made Clarence cry in that particular spot?

I heard sounds behind me and spun around to find nothing there. I listened closely and made out the words of one of those old spirituals we learned about during Black History Month in school.

"This may be the last time
This may be the last time, children
This may be the last time
May be the last time children I don't know"

"May be the last time we stay together
May be the last time I don't know
She's goin' home to see her daughter
May be the last time I don't know"

Was it my imagination or were the ghosts of the unfortunate people involuntary required to work these lands singing to me? The old quarters, the ones Grandpa used during the school tours to show the students how they lived back before the war, were on the other side of the plantation. This area might have been a field where they grew cotton or even the livestock area. I still didn’t know why Clarence would have been in this particular spot.

Bailey opened the door almost as soon as I knocked. She kissed me, tasting faintly of toothpaste. She held up the tape recorder. "I was able to make out more from the tapes. Do you want me to tell you now or wait until the whole group is here?"

Even though I really wanted to hear about it, I told her to wait. The fight with Grammy still filled my mind, we talked again about what happened. She gave me a hug and said, "I can kind of see her point, though, or at least, I can understand where she’s coming from."

"You’re supposed to take my side in all of this," I said, lightly pushing at her shoulder. I acted slightly perturbed but was secretly happy she was sharing her take on what happened. She knew I just needed to be held and to talk it out last night. Now I needed her thoughts on it all.

"I think you’re right to want to find out what’s happening here." She put her arms around my waist, pulling me close and stuck her hands in my back pockets. "I also think they’ve had their head stuck in the sand for way too long. No one wants anyone to think they’re crazy, and I’m sure that’s what your Grammy is afraid of."

"I know it is. She told me it was, but if I had a daughter and she did what my momma did, I’d do everything in my power to find out what caused it, even if it made everyone think I was crazy."

"You don’t know that. You don’t know what you would do." She kissed the top of my head. "I think you’d probably try, but she seems to be the type that wants everyone to think everything is always perfect."

Bailey was right; Grammy was that way. My Granny also always wanted to pretend everything was perfect when it wasn’t. That was one of the reasons we hadn’t talked about my parents or the Forsythe side of my family very much. "Well, even if I do understand why she’s that way, it isn’t going to stop me from figuring this all out."

She pulled away from me. "We can’t stop now. We know too much to just act like nothing ever happened."

We walked back to the house and ate breakfast. Soon, all five of us made our way to the cabin. I didn’t know about them, but I was almost hoping to spot Clarence and try to talk to him. For me, he held the key to the whole mystery to at least to most of the doors of it.

Bailey and I sat down on the bed in the cabin, and the others took the chairs in the room. Uncle Kerry took out a notepad and said, "I found out some really interesting information. Is it Ok if I go first?" When we all nodded, he turned to a page in the notebook. "First, Leigha, you’re sleeping in Gabriella and Garrett’s old room, so I’m sure that’s Gabriella we heard on the tape."

Bailey nodded her head. "When I listened to more of the tapes, I heard the female voice say Garrett several times. I knew it had to be their room."

Uncle Kerry went on. "There was a Samuel and Harriet who were slaves here at the time of Gabriella and Garrett’s disappearance, but they were freed when Clarence died."

I frowned. "Why is that?"

"No one knows for sure, but Clarence left a note saying they were to be freed upon his death. He died the day after Garrett and Gabriella left to go pick up their daughter."

"Was that a spur of the moment decision, or something he had been planning for a long time?" Kate asked.

Uncle Kerry shrugged. "There’s no way to know for sure. Clarence had diaries of every year of his life from the time he bought the plantation until a year before his death. No one ever found the one for the year of his death."

I stood up and paced the floor. "Did he stop keeping one? Did he hide it so no one would find it? Or maybe someone in the family hid it after his death?"

"Your guess is as good as mine on that one. I wish I knew where that last diary was."

"Me too. I don’t know for sure we’d get any answers from it, but you never know," I said.

Suzanne said, "Do you know about what happened to Samuel and Harriet after they were freed? Did they stick around here?"

"No, they moved out west from what I could gather. There’s nothing else in the family history about them."

"There’s probably no way to track a history on them either," I said. "It’s hard to find records of slaves or even freed slaves."

We all sat back in silence for a few minutes, digesting the information he had shared with us. This confirmed we were at least partially on the right track anyway. I leaned forward and said, "Like I said yesterday, I think Gabriella and Garrett were planning to come back the night they left and get Samuel and Harriet and help them get away on the Underground Railroad. Grandpa says one of the theories about their disappearance states they were working for it. Garrett’s parents were anyway. We have to find out what happened to them."

"Well, we know they didn’t make it back here because Samuel and Harriet didn’t disappear along with them," Uncle Kerry said. "Something must have happened to them after they left the house."

"I don’t see how we can figure that out," Suzanne said. "They could have been planning to free Samuel and Harriet and then changed their mind and met with trouble while traveling to his Garrett’s parent’s home to get Leigha."

Bailey stood up and said, "Suzanne’s right. Right now, there’s no use guessing as to what it could be. What’s most important is finding out what happens on the nights the tragedies take place. I listened to more of the tapes from both rooms and heard more than we did yesterday."

Chapter 18

We all waited for Bailey to start talking again. She took a deep breath and said, "The tape in Leigh's parents’ room has quite a bit more on it. I heard a female voice say, ‘I’m Gabriella’ over and over again. I also heard this weird laughing, crying sound."

"Grandpa told me he saw Gabriella in my parents’ room the night they died," I said. "He said she was making that same kind of sound."

Bailey played it for us. Both Kate and I jumped up from our seats. "I’m pretty sure I heard that sound the night my parents died, too. I wasn’t sure because it always came to me in a dream, but now, I’m almost positive I really did hear it." Kate said, her eyes wide.

"Me too!" I said as goose bumps covered my entire body. That was a sound I never wanted to hear again. "I didn't realize it until I heard it again."

Suzanne shook her head. "I don’t know if I did or not. I think I’ve blocked most of the memories from that night."

"Was there anything else on the tape?" Uncle Kerry said.

"Yes, but I’m not sure I’m making it out right," Bailey said. "It sounds like the voice is saying, ‘You took me away from my daughter…" and then the tape is full of static."

She played it for us again. A whispery voice filled the air, and I heard what Bailey had told us. I strained to make out the next few words, but the static covered any kind of sound. We all looked at each other in confusion.

"Who took her away from her daughter?" I asked. "We all know it’s Gabriella saying this."

Bailey stood up and paced. "I have a bit of a theory, but there is no way to prove it. I think Gabriella and Garrett came back that night to take Samuel and Harriet, and when they got here, someone shot them as intruders and then hid their bodies."

"What you say makes sense, especially since Gabriella is haunting this place, but who could have done it? Does it even matter?" Uncle Kerry asked.

I nodded. "I think it was Clarence, but how and why? Did he cover them up? Where are the bodies if he did? I wish we had his final diary. I’m sure he hid it because he revealed the truth in it."

"I guess we’ve solved the mystery of Gabriella and Garrett’s disappearance, but how does all that fit into what happens here? How does it all happen?" Suzanne said.

It was my turn to tell them some of the information I had found out when I was doing my Google research. I told them about poltergeist and explained why I didn’t think that fit. I also told them about the ways ghosts can move objects. "I don’t think that’s it either," I said. "The one thing that does fit is spiritual possession."

I explained that ghosts can take advantage of a person when they are mentally or physically stressed. Once the ghost finds a way to take control of the person, he or she starts to think, walk, talk and behave like the ghost. "If Gabriella does take possession of the women in the family, it stands to reason she wants to avenge hers and Garrett’s death. She doesn’t want anyone to know any happiness when she’s in so much pain," I said.

"So how do we get the ghost to go away? We have to call a Catholic priest to do an exorcism?" Uncle Kerry laughed, but I could tell he was serious with the question.

"I don’t know. I can’t find much information about what to do to take back a person’s spirit from a ghost. I’m going to do some more research tonight to see if I can figure it out," I said.

"How are we going to stop this from happening again if we don’t know how to get rid of the ghosts?" Kate asked.

I shrugged. "I’m going try my best to get it done. I don’t think we have to worry about it this year. It’s not even been 15 years since my parents died. There’s usually 15 to 20 years between each murder-suicide."

"We can’t be sure of that," Uncle Kerry said. "It could happen anytime. I think we all need to be on guard at all times."

We agreed and left to go our separate ways. I wanted to take the time to look at the spot where we saw Clarence crying. Bailey and I went out there, but the only things on the ground were stepping stones on the path separating the cabins. I still wondered what used to be here before they built the new cabins. Was there any possibility that Clarence had buried them out here after he shot them -- that is, if he was the one who did it?

The ball was going to be in two more days so the house buzzed with activity when Bailey and I went back inside. Grammy directed caterers, florists and other workers to various corners of the house. I peeked into the ballroom and found swags covering the windows. Magnolia blossoms on golden ropes tied the curtains back, letting in lots of sunlight. I just knew it would be beautiful the night of the ball.

We went upstairs to my room and grabbed my laptop. I decided to hide away in the kitchen with Miss Lena to do my research. I wanted to share my theory with her, even though Grammy had asked me not to tell anyone. Miss Lena would keep the information to herself and tell me what she thought about it.

I asked her if it would be Ok to spend some time with her, and of course, she was willing. Bailey sat down beside me, and she served us cookies, all the while exclaiming over how cute Bailey was. She winked at me and said, "If I was 50 years younger, I might go after him myself."

Bailey was about to protest but closed her mouth when she saw the look on my face. She’d always encouraged me to just let it go when adults thought I was a girl. I was enjoying the shoe being on the other foot for a change. She grinned knowingly at me and did not say a word.

"He might want you now after eating these cookies," I said as Bailey poked me in the ribs and we both laughed.

I explained to Miss Lena what I was going to be looking for on the computer, and the theories we had explored. She nodded agreement with just about everything I said.

"I don’t think Gabriella’s spirit’s evil, just sad," she said. "I think she feels sorry for all the pain she causes after it’s all said and done. I just don’t think she can help herself."

"Why do you say that?" Bailey asked.

"Cause I saw the ghost one night and heard her talking," she said. "I didn’t want to go up and scare her away or anything, so I just listened in. She kept saying she was sorry over and over again."

"If she really is sorry maybe that’s something we can use to get her to stop it," I said, "but will we be able to do it before another tragedy happens? Can we even reason with a ghost?"

"Well, now I don’t know about all that, but I know you got it in you to do it," she said with a smile before her expression became wistful. "If you do, maybe you can be you again."

I started to ask what she meant but quickly realized she probably meant I could be happy like I was before everything happened. I nodded. "Hopefully I can."

I researched all afternoon, trying to find an answer on how to stop a ghostly possession. There wasn’t much about what to do once the ghost had taken control, but I did find information that said we could always ask the spirit to leave, although this doesn’t always work. I couldn’t see Gabriella leaving even if we asked her to. For some reasons, I felt as though we had to do something physically in order for her to rest.

After we finished with the research and made careful notes, Bailey and I put the laptop back in my room and went downstairs to dinner. Most of the family members who were coming for the reunion and the ball were there, and I was introduced to all of them. By the end of the night, my head was so full of names that all I wanted to do was go to bed. I felt a serious headache coming on. I'd never had before but I began thinking that Caroline's tears may have been warranted if what she felt was worse than what I was going through. I told Bailey good night at the front door and went up to my room.

I closed my eyes and was soon asleep. However, a voice called my name over and over until I woke up again. Gabriella stood beside my bed and motioned for me to follow her.

Chapter 19

I got out of bed, and she disappeared through the door. As soon as I opened it, I saw her standing on the other side. She wore a green dress with a hoop skirt. A mist surrounded her as though her edges had been smudged with an eraser. Again, she motioned for me to follow her, and I did. She floated down the hallway, her feet not visible beneath the skirt. I wanted to talk to her but was afraid of waking everyone in the house. She paused in front of Grandpa’s study and glided through this door, too.

I was afraid the door would be locked and was surprised when the knob turned easily in my hand. She stood in front of the fireplace, and as I watched, drifted up. A light shone around her, illuminating the room. Her finger pointed to a brick halfway between the mantel and the ceiling. "The answers you seek are behind this stone," she said. "Please find a way to help me…" The words trailed off as she disappeared.

I couldn’t reach it without climbing onto something, but the room went dark when she disappeared. I tiptoed around with my hand in front of me until I found one of the side table lamps and turned it on. Propped against the bookshelf was just what I needed. Grandpa had a small stepladder leaning against the shelves to help him get books from the top. As quietly as I could, I grabbed it and opened it in front of the fireplace.

My fingers touched the edge of the stone, and it was a little loose. I worked and wiggled it until it came out in my hand. I reached my fingers inside, and they closed around a small book. I pulled it out and saw "Diary" written on the cover. I had found the recording of the last year of Clarence’s life.

I wanted nothing more than to run to my room with the book and stay up all night reading, but first, I had to put the room back as it was. I put the book on the mantel and stuffed the brick back into its spot, propped the stepstool against the bookshelf, grabbed the diary again, turned off the light and tiptoed out of the room. I nearly ran down the hallway, opened my door and jumped into my bed.

For a moment, I thought I should wait to read it until our little group was together, but I knew I couldn’t wait. I opened the book to the first page. The entries at the beginning looked interesting and were about slaves bought and sold, crops grown on the plantation and other items like that, but this wasn’t what I was looking for. I flipped to the last entry. It was dated the day before Clarence’s death.

"I have committed the most heinous act any man can. I killed my daughter and her husband. I will never forgive myself, and the rest of my family must never find out. They would never forgive me either.

"They left this morning to pick up their daughter. I did not know they would be coming back. I heard a noise outside. The dogs were barking, and I didn’t know if it was a fox in the chicken coop or one of the slaves escaping. Colleen woke up, and I told her not to worry herself and to go back to sleep.

"We had been having trouble with some animal killing our chickens and eating them. I wasn’t going to let the varmint get away with it again. Plus, several slaves in the area had tried to escape in the last few weeks. I didn’t think mine would do that, but you never knew with them.

"I grabbed my rifle and came out on the front porch. I had a lantern in my other hand but couldn’t see anything more than two feet ahead of me due to the fog. The fog even obscured the moon. The dogs barked more as I walked outside. I knew something had happened, and I needed to put a stop to it. Once I got off the porch, I started shooting. I figured I might hit the fox if that’s what it was or the slave that was escaping. Either way, it wouldn’t matter all that much."

I had to stop reading at this point. It disgusted me that he equated a human’s life with that of an animal, but I knew it was the common thought at that time. Still, Clarence was not winning any points with me. Any pity I felt for him was almost gone at this point. I started reading again.

"I didn’t want to lose any of my slaves, but if they were trying to escape, I felt as though they deserved it. I heard doors open in their quarters, and I called out that all was fine. I made my way down the trail and soon heard crying. Lying in front of me were Garrett and Gabriella. Garrett had been shot clean through the head and was dead. Gabriella was dying. I could see that from the wound in her stomach. I cradled her body in my arms and sobbed as she said, ‘This family will never know happiness as long as I never know peace.’ She died after the words left her mouth. I sat there with her in my arms for what seemed like forever before I realized I had to move, to cover up what I had done.

"Sam and Harriet were in their wagon waiting for them. They cowered as I approached, but I soon made it clear to them that I meant them no harm. I made them get out and help me bury Garrett and Gabriella together at the far edge of the plantation. No crops were to be planted there, and I planned to add more slave quarters later this fall. As much as I hated myself for what I had done, I could not let Colleen and my sons find out about it. Colleen would hate me and then where would I be? I had already lost my daughter. I couldn’t bear the thought of losing the rest of my family.

"It took Sam and me two hours to dig their grave. I wanted it to be as deep as possible to keep animals from getting to them. I wished I could have buried them in the family cemetery, but Colleen would have noticed the turned over ground when she went to put flowers on our baby’s grave. Hardly anyone goes out to the area where they are buried, so I don’t have to be worried they will be found.

"I promised Sam and Harriet their freedom upon my death if they would keep my secret. I knew they would, and I knew it was the right thing to do since Gabriella and Garrett had died trying to accomplish that goal. It was my last gift to my daughter. After we buried them, I gave Sam my shirt to burn since it was covered in Gabriella and Garrett’s blood. I went to my study and wrote a note giving details about what should happen to the two slaves after my death. I put it with my will. Then, I began to write this entry into my journal.

"I’m going to hide it. I know I should destroy it, but someday in the future, I want the world to know what really happened to Gabriella and Garrett. I will be dead and gone by then and won’t have to withstand losing the rest of my family. God forgive me because I never will."

The entry ended there. How could he live with himself after what he did? I guess he couldn’t since he had died in his sleep that night. Now, I knew for sure why Gabriella haunted this plantation and why she caused a murder-suicide every 15 to 20 years. She wanted the family to suffer as she had. She would never see her daughter grow up, so why should others in the family be allowed to do so? Plus, she wanted to avenge her death along with Garrett’s. It all made sense now. My theory had been correct.

Miss Lena had also been right when she said Gabriella was sorry she did it. She had even asked me for help tonight to stop her. I still wasn’t sure how we were going to do it when we didn’t even know when she would strike again. I didn’t know if we had to wait until she possessed someone or if I could talk to her before then to stop it.

I laid back against my pillows and tried to sleep. My mind flitted from Clarence to Gabriella to my parents to the present time, and as it did, I rolled around trying to find a comfortable position. I wanted to get up and walk down to Bailey’s cabin, but I knew if Grammy caught me she would be upset. I was already in enough hot water with her as it was.

The last time I looked at the clock, it was three in the morning. I finally drifted off to sleep with Gabriella’s voice saying, "Help me," over and over again.

***

I slept through my alarm the next morning and didn’t wake up until Bailey pounded on my door and told me it was time for breakfast. I threw on some clothes in a hurry and pulled my hair up in a ponytail. When I came out of my bathroom, I grabbed the journal off my nightstand and held it up. "Guess what I’ve got here?"

She shrugged, and I laughed. "Don’t act so excited. It’s the journal from Clarence’s last year of life."

She pushed herself up in the chair, and her green eyes widened. "You’re shitting me?"

"No, I’m serious. Gabriella came to me last night and showed me where it was. I stayed up late reading it. That’s why I overslept."

"Well, don’t keep it to yourself. What did it say? Were we right?"

I nodded. "Clarence killed Gabriella and Garrett and buried them somewhere on the plantation. I’m sure that’s why she causes the murder-suicides, but we can talk more about this when we’re all together. We need to get downstairs and tell Uncle Kerry, Kate and Suzanne about this."

When I got to the dining room, I went to each one of them and told them we needed to talk to them after breakfast. They all looked intrigued and asked me what was up, but I stalled them and said I wanted to talk about it when we were all together. As I was eating, I looked at them and found they were all wolfing down their food. I knew I had their curiosity aroused.

We met on the front porch because no one wanted to wait until we got to Bailey’s cabin to hear my news. I filled them in on what I found and what it said. Uncle Kerry said, "This really does explain it all. What are we going to do now?"

I shook my head. "I don’t know. I looked up ways to stop a ghost possession, but none of it seems like it would work with Gabriella. We don’t even know when she’ll strike again or who she’ll target."

"I think we should tell Mom and Dad," Uncle Kerry said. "This changes our whole family history and clears up a huge mystery. Books have been written about Gabriella and Garrett’s disappearance. This isn’t just about the ghosts."

"That’s fine, but Grammy’s not going to want to hear about it when she hears how I found the journal," I said. "She doesn’t want to hear anything about ghosts."

"We’ll handle her," he said. "I’m sure Grammy’s in the ballroom getting everything set up for tomorrow night. Grandpa’s probably hiding from her in his study. Let’s go find them and tell them what you’ve found."

Uncle Kerry was right about Grammy. She was in the ballroom, arguing with the decorator about where to hang more magnolia blossoms. Uncle Kerry took Grammy’s arm and directed her off to the corner, as she called instructions out over her shoulder.

She put her hands on her hips. "Kerry Dean Forsythe, I do not have time for this."

"I think you do. We’ve got something important to tell you. Where’s Dad?"

"I’m sure he’s up in his study, hiding away so I can’t put him to work. What is this about?"

"We’ll tell you when we’re all together."

We all walked up the stairs together. I caught Grammy giving Uncle Kerry dirty looks. The ones she threw me were puzzled. I already felt the fight coming on. She wasn’t going to like what I had to tell her.

Grandpa jumped as we opened the study door and turned around holding a book. Before we could even say anything, he put out a hand and said, "Now, Grammy, you know I’m not any good at that kind of thing. I don’t even know the difference between a curtain and a swag."

She sniffed. "It wasn’t my idea to come up here to get you. Your son says they," she pointed to me and Uncle Kerry, "have something important to tell us."

Chapter 20

Uncle Kerry smiled at them both. "It’s not really my story to tell. I think Leigha should be the one to explain."

I took a deep breath and said, "Last night, Gabriella’s ghost came to me…"

Grammy jumped up. "I told you I didn’t want to hear any more of this ghost nonsense. I have too much to do today to listen to this."

Grandpa stood up and put an arm on her shoulder. "Ava, it’s time to stop pretending this house isn’t haunted. You’re going to sit here and listen to what she says."

Grammy’s face turned bright red. She sat back down in the chair, crossed her arms and then her legs, and started swinging one foot. I figured I might get a lecture from her later, but I had to tell my story.

"Anyway, she came to me and motioned for me to follow her. She brought me into this study and showed me a loose stone in the fireplace. Behind it was Clarence’s journal, the one from the last year of his life."

"The missing one?" Grandpa asked. "Have you read it? Why would he hide it?"

I took another deep breath. How was I going to explain to them that the man they looked up to as a great ancestor, the founder of the family, was a murderer who had killed his own daughter and son-in-law? I decided to just start right in. "He hid it because he killed Gabriella and Garrett and then buried them on the property."

"I can’t believe that. From everything we know of him, he was a good man." Grammy said in her superior tone.

I snorted. "He didn’t seem to be a good man when he was equating the killing of a fox with the killing of a slave. Then, instead of facing up to what he did like a man, he hid it and died before his conscience could even bother him." I handed her the diary. "See for yourself."

She read his last entry aloud. When she finished, she closed the book with a snap. "If this gets out, what will everyone think of this family?

Uncle Kerry laughed. "Momma, this happened 155 years ago. It has no bearing whatsoever on our family today. We can’t be held accountable for what our ancestors did."

"Well, let’s just keep this to ourselves then. Why should we let anyone know?"

"I think we should release it." Grandpa scratched his chin. "It could bring us a lot of publicity, and publicity means business. Everyone will want to come here after hearing that the Gabriella and Garrett disappearance mystery has been solved. We could even play up the ghosts we have in the home."

Grammy jumped up again. "No, no, no. I will not have it. We can release the diary. I won’t fight you on that, but we will not talk about ghosts. I’m putting my foot down. People already think we’re crazy enough out here as it is. I’m not going to add to it."

Uncle Kerry got up and put his arm around Grammy. "Don’t worry, Momma, we won’t say anything about the ghosts. No one is going to think we’re crazy. Besides, most people can tell this house has spirits just by being in it."

"Maybe so, but that doesn’t mean we’ve got to promote it. I supposed we can tell everyone about the diary at the ball tomorrow night. Thomas, you call the newspaper and let them know we’ll have a story for them besides just the usual report following the ball."

She left the room, leaving us all to look at each other. Even though I knew why Grammy was so against the ghosts and her reasons for not talking about them, I still found it unreasonable. Plenty of people believed in ghosts. Many had even said they had seen them and talked to them. In the last few years, television series had been developed about ghost hunting and ghost sighting and haunted houses. If Grandpa knew about them, he would probably want to get the house on one of those shows. Grammy’s heart couldn’t take that.

Grandpa wanted me to show him the spot in the fireplace where the diary had been hidden. He took the stone away and looked inside to see if Clarence had left anything else. He reached farther inside and found small gold cross on a chain.

"I wonder who that belonged to," he said.

"Could it have been Gabriella’s?" I said as I pulled out the similar one I wore around my neck that belonged to my mother. "Maybe he took it with him after he buried her."

Grandpa clutched the piece of jewelry in his hand. "I’m going to put this in the family safe with some of the other family jewelry that survived the Civil War. I don’t know what else to do with it."

Uncle Kerry left the room and said he had to go to town to take care of some business. Kate and Suzanne’s families would soon be arriving, and they left Bailey and I alone with Grandpa. For some reason, I wanted to go visit the home I would have grown up in if my parents had lived. I explained this to Grandpa, and he dug around in a drawer and found a set of keys. He gave Bailey directions and told me to take my time out there. "It’s yours now anyway. Your Grammy and I have always meant to give it to you."

We left the busy house and made our way past the grounds. We soon came upon a two story house built along the design of the manor but on a smaller scale. It was two stories with a wraparound front porch, featuring a wooden swing. The shutters were painted green as was the floor of the porch. Gauzy pale blue curtains graced the windows, and I wondered how close we were to moving in before my parents died. Someone kept the lawn mown, and the windows sparkled. I’m sure Grammy sent some of the house staff over here to clean every so often.

The front door opened into the living room, and I tiptoed inside, unsure of why. Maybe I was afraid to disturb the sacredness of the place. A tan and blue couch along with a recliner and side chair stood inside the room. The walls were painted taupe. I released my breath and turned to look at Bailey. "This is where I would have grown up if things had been different." I wiped tears away from eyes.

She came up and took me in her arms. "Maybe someday we can live here and make happy memories for ourselves. It would have been a great home for you to grow up in."

I nodded and decided to look over the rest of the house. The downstairs held the dining room and kitchen, along with a den, bathroom and sun room. The upstairs contained three bedrooms and another two baths. My bedroom was the first I opened, and it was a replica of the one back at the manor. I had a canopy bed in pink, and the walls were also pink, along with the curtains. I was glad I had outgrown the love of that color a long time ago. It looked like someone had sprayed Pepto Bismal all over the place.

Bailey smiled. "I guess you really liked pink back then."

"I guess so," I said with a laugh. "The whole girl thing is too weird for words."

"Yeah." Bailey said as she pulled me closer. "I don’t get it either." She then grinned mischievously. "Although, I think you’re hot either way."

Even though I now hated pink, I wished I had the chance to grow up in that room, to change the décor as my tastes changed with my age. I wanted sleepovers in this room, and big birthday parties in the den. I wished for the chance to crawl in the bed with my parents when I had a nightmare.

I looked inside my parents’ room and found it was furnished, too. Most of the other rooms were furnished, as well, except the beds didn’t have any covers on them. I really was surprised by the lack of dust, but the cleaning ladies obviously didn’t slack over here, even though they couldn’t be sure their work would ever be seen.

We went back downstairs and sat at the dining room table. I looked up at Bailey. "I’m not sure what I expected to find out here, but I wanted, well, I guess I needed to see it."

"I’m glad you asked your grandpa about it then. You need to see and do everything you can while you’re here to make yourself feel better."

"I knew this trip would bring back the feelings of loss I’ve had my whole life," I said, "but I didn’t realize it would be so strong. It isn’t just the presence of my parents that I miss; it’s the memories and experiences we didn’t get to share that I miss the most. How can you miss something you never got to do?"

She got up from the table and came to stand behind me. I placed my head against her shoulder and ran my hand under her shirt. I liked the way she sucked her breath in, so I continued to move my hand up her stomach and breasts. I didn’t want to hurt anymore. I just wanted to feel good, and I knew making love to her would take my mind off all of it. I stood up, took her hand and lead her to the couch in the living room.

I touched my lips to hers and then deepened the kiss as I pressed my body against hers. She ran her hands up my back under my shirt and moved against me. I wanted to melt into her and become a part of her. As she kissed me and touched me, my mind floated away to a place where there were no ghosts or dead parents or murder-suicides. All I felt was a sense of passion, and I reached for the button on her jeans.

She pushed my hands away, sat up and then moved to the other end of the couch. As I looked over at her, she shook her head. "I want to make love to you, Leigh, but not like this."

"Not like what? We’re here alone. We don’t have to worry about anyone finding us. It’s the perfect time."

She stood up and paced the floor. "No, no it’s not. You’re vulnerable and hurting and just want to feel good. I don’t want you to decide to have sex with me just because you’re feeling too much emotional pain." She looked at me. "It would be so easy for me to give into you because I want you more than anything, but I love you too much to take advantage of you like that."

I got up, put my arms around her and kissed her again, determined to change her mind, but it was too late, the moment had passed. She kissed me back and then pulled away from me. "Besides, we don’t have any protection with us, and I’m not going to take that risk."

"What? I don’t have one in my wallet?" I asked while dumping the contents on the floor, trying to lighten the mood. Before she could even answer, I laid my head against her chest and listened to her heart beating. She knew me well enough to see through me and I loved her even more for it.

"Are you ready to go?" She asked.

"I guess so." I took a look around the living room, and as I did so, a bright light zoomed past me. "Did you see that?"

She nodded and looked out the window. "I don’t have a clue what it could be. There’s nothing here that would make that kind of light."

The light raced past us again, and this time we heard a whispering voice say, "Follow the energy."

Chapter 21

I looked at Bailey, and she shrugged. We decided to follow the light or the energy or whatever it was. It sped up the stairs and then back down again. We ran upstairs and waited for it to come back up. It moved down the hallway to my parents’ bedroom, then went through the door.

As soon as I opened it, I saw the light bouncing in front of the closet. I went over and opened it up. The light bounced up to a hanging cord. "It must be the crawl space," I said. "Give me a boost up."

Bailey helped me onto the shelf at the top of the closet, and I pulled the cord. If I had to, I would go into the crawl space, but I didn’t want to. Claustrophobia kept me away from caves and elevators, and this was even smaller than those. I felt around and my hand closed around a book. I pulled it down and saw the word journal stamped on the front. Another diary? I didn’t have to wonder who's this one was, but why would my mother feel the need to hide it?

Bailey helped me back down, and I showed her what I had found. We went downstairs and sat at the dining room table once again. I started at the beginning of this diary, just as I had with Clarence’s. Instead of being about slaves and crops, Momma’s diary was about life raising me and going back to work as a social worker. Even though I planned to read it all at some point, I was more interested in what she had written in the last few days of her life. I’m sure it would give us some clue as to why she had hidden it and what might happen before the next murder-suicide.

I flipped to the last week she had written. I decided to read it aloud to Bailey. "I had to get away from the manor for a while. I’m not sure what it is, but something about that house takes me over. I can’t think, and the migraines I’ve been having are worse while I’m there. I’ve been hearing a woman cry during the worst of the pain, and when I come over here, it all goes away completely. I can’t wait until next week when Robert, Leigha and I will move in here. We decided to wait until after the ball to make the big move, but now I’m not sure it was such a good idea."

I stopped reading for a second and looked at Bailey. "Look at how she spelled my name. Why didn’t they try to move sooner? Maybe it would never have happened if they hadn’t been living at the plantation."

She shrugged and said, "You never know. Even if they had moved, they might have spent the night there, and it still would have happened."

I turned to the next page and read again. "I talked to Robert again last night about going ahead and moving now, and he still wants to wait. He says that everyone is too caught up in the preparations for the reunion and the ball, and we wouldn’t have anyone to help. I don’t see how much help we would need. The house is furnished now, and all we would have to move are our clothes and necessities, along with Leigha’s toys. I’m just not sure how much longer I can stand the migraines and the endless crying I hear at night. I don’t want to tell anyone because I’m scared they’ll all think I’m crazy. I need to tell someone, though. I think I’ll confide in Casey. He won’t tell anyone else, and he definitely won’t think I’m crazy."

I stopped again and said, "She did talk to him. He said she made an appointment for the next week to see her doctor."

The next entry said, "I made an appointment with my doctor today. I go in next week. I tried to get it sooner, but they couldn’t work me in. I didn’t tell them about the crying I’ve been hearing, just the migraines. Casey told me I was working too hard and was too stressed out over the move. Maybe he’s right, but I somehow just can’t help but feel it has to do with something in the house, a ghost or spirit. I think Gabriella is the one I’m hearing at night. I don’t know how to make her stop or help her."

"I wonder if her doctor ever felt bad for not being able to work her in," I said, "but it’s not like they would have been able to help her very much since her problems had nothing to do with her physical body or even her mind, really."

"I wonder why she hid the diary away," Bailey said. "I really hope she gives us an answer for that."

I started reading the next day’s entry. "I’m losing track of time. This morning, I was in our room getting ready for work, and the next thing I knew, I was in Daddy’s study. When I came around, I stood in front of his gun case. I don’t even remember walking in there or what I had went in there for. Luckily, he wasn’t in there, so I didn’t have to explain myself. I have to drive, but I’m getting scared to do it with me blacking out like this. I’m trying very hard not to go anywhere with Leigha in the car with me, because I couldn’t live with myself if I blacked out and had a wreck, hurting her. The crying hasn’t stopped. If anything, it’s getting worse. Now, I can hear her speaking. She says, ‘This family will never know happiness as long as I never know peace.’ I don’t know what she means by that. I would do anything to help her find the peace she wants, if only it would stop her from crying like she does."

"She’s referring to me as her." I stopped only long enough to turn the page, which was the beginning of the last entry. "Gabriella came to me last night and said I needed to hide my diary in an area where no one would find it. I’m going to put it in the crawl space here in the new house. Part of me wonders why she wants me to do it, but I can’t help but feel I have to obey her. The feeling is especially strong when I’m at Magnolia Manor but gets weaker when I come to this house. This morning, I blacked out again, but I vaguely remember going to Daddy’s study again. I’m almost positive I took something, but when I searched our room, I couldn’t find anything that didn’t belong there.

"Tonight is the Magnolia Ball. Whenever I think about it, I get a bad feeling, like something terrible is going to happen. I want to take Robert and Leigha and run away as far as we can, but something besides just being worried about what Momma and Daddy would think is keeping me from going. It’s that damned house. I know it is. Gabriella’s ghost is also having an influence on me. I don’t know how to stop it.

"I’ve also noticed the house seems to affect other people. Everyone turns a blind eye to what is going on. I know Kerry heard Gabriella crying the other night even though he said he didn’t. He startled as soon as it started, so I know he did. Daddy said he accidentally left the gun case unlocked one day and that never happens, not when there are little ones in the house. He is super careful about it. Momma acts like she always has, but even she seems more uptight about any mention of ghosts. The cleaning ladies don’t want to go near certain areas of the house. Only Miss Lena seems to be unaffected by any of it. Even Leigha has been having trouble sleeping. I know if I mentioned what is going with me to any of them, they wouldn’t believe me. I think Casey is more immune to it since he lives away from the house right now.

"Terrible things have happened in this house before. I know I could never do what those other women have done, but I’m sure everyone thought that about them before it happened. I’m so tired and ready for the ball to be over with so I can spend my first night in my new home. I know Gabriella won’t be here, and I won’t have to hear the endless crying. I have a feeling the migraines will be gone, too, as they disappear as soon as I step inside the new house.

"I’m going to hide the diary just like she said, but Monday night, when we spend our first night here, I’m going to take it down and write about the happy memories we made moving in. About how Leigha loves her new bedroom. I’m so excited about that, but I’m hoping that the bad feelings about tonight can be chalked up to stress over the move, starting a new job and the migraines I’ve been having. I’m praying nothing more happens."

I closed the book with thud and wiped at my eyes. If she had only shown this diary to someone, maybe they would have helped her. She would still be here today, and I would have grown up in this house. I looked over at Bailey. "Do you think the house does something funny to people?"

"I don’t know. I’m not staying in the house, so maybe it’s different for me. Do you think it’s affecting you?"

I shook my head. "Not really. I’m hearing Gabriella and seeing Clarence and not pretending I didn’t see it. Uncle Kerry, Kate and Suzanne don’t seem to have that problem either. Maybe it’s just not as strong this year as it was the year Momma and Daddy died. Maybe it’s only that strong when Gabriella takes possession of the woman. Do I seem any different?"

"I don’t know. You look a little different and please don’t take this wrong. I think you look more feminine somehow. I also think the house has this feeling about it, though. I don’t know how to describe it. It’s like whenever I walk through the door, I’m always expecting something bad to happen," she said, "but maybe that’s because I know the house’s history."

"Feminine how?" I asked nervously. "I didn’t have enough masculinity to begin with. I don’t want to lose what I have."

"It’s nothing bad." Bailey said in a reassuring tone. "I’ve noticed your emotions are freer and you allow me to hold you more than before. You and I have become much closer than ever before because of your new openness and I’m glad for it."

"It could be because I have so many emotions right now that I have to let them out or go crazy." I shrugged and held up the diary. "I’m definitely going to show this to Uncle Kerry, Kate and Suzanne, but I don’t know whether to show it to Grammy and Grandpa. Grammy will have a fit at the mention of ghosts."

"She’ll just put it off on your momma being crazy. She’ll never admit there’s ghost in the house."

I laughed. "She did one time, though. The day I was getting sketched for my portrait. We saw my parents dancing in the ballroom. She had to admit it then."

"Well you won’t find her admitting it publicly," she said. "Your Grandpa was right about the ghost aspect of the house bringing in more people. There are plenty who would come to visit just on the basis of that alone."

"I know. I don’t know what it will take to make her admit it to the world," I said. "We’ve pretty much figured out what happens when the tragedies take place, and I’m sure she’ll never allow the world to know."

"Leigh baby, I hate to say this, but it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to let that part out." She ran a hand through her hair. "You aren’t going to like this, but no one outside the family will believe you about it anyway. Everyone will just say you’re a teenager trying to find fault somewhere else besides your mom. You know that, right?"

I had never thought about it that way, but she was right. Even if we stopped Gabriella, even if we broke the curse, it wasn’t going to be enough to clear my momma’s name. Tears came to my eyes again. "What in the hell am I doing this for then? I wanted the world to know she wasn’t at fault."

"You’re doing it because your momma and daddy came to you and asked you to do it. Besides that, you don’t want any other little girl to go through what you, Kate, Suzanne and so many others have." Her kiss to my cheek was so gentle and full of love. "You’re doing a good thing."

I nodded and dried my tears even though I wanted nothing more than to cry for a long time. No matter what, the world would go on believing Momma had killed Daddy and then shot herself. People might believe the house was haunted and even come to see it for that reason, but no one was going to believe anything about a ghostly possession. It was the stuff of movies, not real life.

I picked the diary up and looked through the house again to make sure we hadn’t left anything out of place. Grandpa said the house was mine and maybe someday I might live here. If not, I could sell it and use the money to buy my own home. I wasn’t sure if I would ever want to live here full time or not, especially not after what happened.

When we got back to the house, Uncle Kerry sat in the swing on the front porch. He met us at the steps and told us that he was waiting on his wife to arrive. He then said, "Are you OK? You look like you’ve been crying."

I nodded. "We went to the house my parents had built. I know it sounds crazy, but this ball of light lead us to Momma’s diary. It contains passages from the last week of her life."

Chapter 22

I handed him the book, and he sat down in one of the wicker chairs. Bailey and I sat down side by side in the swing. Uncle Kerry turned to the back of the book and started reading to himself. When he was done, he closed the book and looked up. He had tears in his eyes, too.

"I remember the night she was talking about," he said. "I can’t even begin to tell you why I pretended not to hear Gabriella. I distinctly remember hearing her cry, but I told your mom I didn’t."

"She thinks it had something to do with the house. What do you think? Do you think something happens here to make y’all ignore the signs that the curse is going to happen again?" I asked.

"I don’t know. I was about 18 when Kate’s parents died, but I didn’t come home that year for the Magnolia Ball. I was working at an internship out of state, so the only one I’ve been here for is your parents. I noticed that your momma seemed different that week, but I knew she was under a lot of stress."

The front door opened, and Grandpa came out. I shared the diary with him, and he stared in shock at what he was reading. When he had finished, he looked at all of us and said, "We could have stopped this. If we had looked closer at the signs, we might have kept it from happening."

Uncle Kerry and I both went to stand beside him and put our hands on his shoulders. "I don’t think you could have, Grandpa. Gabriella knows what she’s doing. She would have found a way for it to happen no matter what."

"Do you think the house does something to us, Dad? I’ve never really thought about it before," Uncle Kerry said.

He scratched his chin and ran a hand across his eyes. "I remember not locking my gun case now, but I didn’t at the time. I know your momma mentioned having the migraines to me, but it didn’t seem like a huge cause for concern. Ava has them, too. I don’t know if that’s the house or just being busy."

I shrugged and told him not to worry about it. There really wasn’t any way to know for sure. We all fail to notice what’s going on with the ones we love from time to time. I know I’ve been guilty of it with my other grandparents. Of course, in that case, it didn’t lead to murder either, but Grandpa didn’t need to make himself feel guilty over it.

Uncle Kerry and Grandpa discussed meeting with the local newspaper to give them the story about Clarence’s diary, but my wandered back to my parent's house. An image came of mind of my father holding me in his arms as we walked up the stairs. "How do you like your new home?" I remember squealing in delight as I saw my new room. I reached for my hair as I remembered how my pigtails bounced as I jumped up and down on my new bed while Daddy and Momma laughed. Daddy caught me mid jump and swung me around the room. "Momma I think our little girl is going to be very happy here."

Somehow I knew it was the morning of the ball. That night my momma would kill Daddy and then herself and nobody had a clue. How could I know if something were to happen if those closest to my mother didn't see the signs in her?

I swiped at the new tears that started to form. Bailey gave me a funny look. I waved my hand at her to let her know I was all right.

Grandpa said, "What do you think, Leigha?"

"About what? I really wasn’t listening," I said with a laugh.

"I think you should talk to the reporter about finding the diary," Uncle Kerry said.

I shook my head. "What am I going to tell him? Grammy doesn’t want us saying anything about the ghosts."

Grandpa laughed. "She’d cloud up and rain all over us if you told them Gabriella’s ghost led you to it. Just make up something, like you saw the brick was loose. I think the reporter will believe it."

"Well, I guess I can. I’m not good at making stuff up though."

"You’ll do fine. Just don’t say anything about the ghosts. I promised your Grammy." Grandpa stood up and patted my shoulder. "I’ll go call and make the arrangements with the newspaper."

They left Bailey and I alone on the porch. We sat beside each other in the swing, her arm around me. "What were you thinking about when you weren’t listening to your Grandpa and Kerry?"

"I was just worried that it might happen again this year, and we would never know until it does."

"I doubt it. You said yourself that they only happen every 15 to 20 years, and it’s only been 13 since your parents."

I stood up and paced the porch, looking down at the green boards as I did so. "I know, but why would my parents want me to come here on a year when it’s not going to happen? What can I do to stop it if this isn’t the year Gabriella does her thing?"

Bailey shook her head. "I don’t know, but I hope the answer comes to us in the next day or two because we have to leave Sunday afternoon."

The thought of leaving without figuring out everything depressed me. I flopped down on the swing next to her, grabbed her arm, put it around me and laid my head on her shoulder while holding her tight around the waist. We had already found a lot of the answers we were looking for, but I still didn’t know how to stop Gabriella or to help her find peace. I doubted the answers would be found on an Internet Web site, because this haunting was different from anything I ever read about.

The wind swept through the front porch, and I watched the leaves and branches on the magnolia trees lining the drive. By the way they were turning, I knew we were in for some rain, but even though the ground looked as though it needed it, I hoped it wouldn’t rain for the ball the next day. Even though I wanted to solve the mystery more than anything else, I also wanted to have a little fun. Strangely, the thought of dressing up in pretty ball gown and dancing the night away with Bailey excited me. I knew it would take my mind away from the depressing thoughts of never being able to stop Gabriella.

I looked up at Bailey. "I guess what bothers me most is that we did all this hard work and found out all these answers, but we still don’t have a way to stop it. It feels like all this work was for nothing."

"You know, I’ve been thinking. Gabriella wants peace. If we could find a way to grant her that wish, maybe she’d stop."

"How do you help a ghost find peace? All the Web sites said to tell the ghosts to cross over into the light, but I don’t think that’s going to be good enough for her."

"I don’t know. Maybe if she comes to you, you can ask her."

"She’s barely said all that much when she has appeared to me. I’m not sure she’d answer any questions."

We decided to go and show Momma’s diary to Kate and Suzanne. They were all moved by her words, and both wondered if their mothers had the same symptoms before they died.

"I can’t remember anyone ever saying that she did, but that doesn’t mean anything," Suzanne said.

"I know Momma had headaches at times, but no one said she had been having them worse before all this happened," Kate said. "Even if she had been having more, it wouldn’t have seemed all that strange since she was prone to them anyway."

I asked them if they had any ideas of ways to help Gabriella find peace. Kate had done some research on the Internet herself, and she said she read that burning sage could help them to cross over. I read that, too, but I also saw that it doesn’t always solve the problem. Besides, I had no clue where to get sage that we could burn.

Suzanne said, "I haven’t done any research, but it seems to me that instead of peace, she really just wants to rest. Do you think she might want us to find her body, along with Garrett’s, and give them a proper burial?"

I smiled. "I think you might be onto something, but how are we going to find their bodies? The layout of the plantation has changed so much over the years. We can’t just dig up all the grounds."

"I don’t know." Suzanne shrugged. "I’m not even sure that’s the right answer, but it seems like it would fit. Maybe you should talk to your Grandpa about it on Sunday when the ball is over. He might have some better idea about which area of the plantation Clarence was talking about in his journal."

I thought she had the right idea. Grandpa probably could help us figure out where their bodies were located, and if need be, I’d call Granny and see if I could stay a few extra days. Bailey could go home to work and come back to get me over the weekend, or they could come down themselves. If that’s what it took to stop the curse and allow Gabriella to find peace, I was willing to do it. I didn’t want any more murder-suicides to happen, and since my parents had come to me, I knew it was my job to stop it. We had most of the questions answered. Now it was time to take those answers and put them to work for a solution to the problem.

Chapter 23

I didn’t have any ghostly visitors the night before the ball. I wanted Gabriella to come to me, to ask her what she sought to find peace and for her to show me where she and Garrett were buried, but after I went to bed, I slept without waking. I don’t think I even dreamed.

The ball was supposed to start at 7 p.m., and I wondered what I could do all day to pass the time. That question was answered as soon as I walked out the door to my room and saw Grandpa approaching. By the look in his eye, I knew he had something he wanted me to do, and I was right.

"After breakfast, a reporter is going to be here from the local paper. Her name’s Samantha Porter. She’s been there for ages, so I know she’ll do a good job." He took my arm as we made our way down the stairs. "She’s going to stay out here and cover the ball for the society section of the paper."

"I’ll try to make up something that sounds good as to how I found the journal," I said.

"Try not to mention the ghosts. I don’t need Grammy any madder at me than she already is." He laughed. "She’ll get over it by next week, though, well, as long as we don’t talk to the reporter about this place being haunted."

I laughed and kissed his cheek. "I don’t want to make her mad at you. I’ll do my best to keep the ghost part of the story to myself."

Bailey met me at the breakfast table and promised to stay with me while I talked to the reporter. I’m sure this was going to be the biggest story of her career, since she was exposing the truth behind a mystery that hadn’t been solved for over a century and a half. Even though I dreaded lying to her, I was kind of excited to be interviewed and finished my breakfast before Bailey had barely started. When I finished, I told her I’d meet her out on the porch.

Walking outside felt like stepping into a sauna. It rained the night before, and the day dawned clear and sunny but the precipitation had caused the humidity levels to rise. I felt sticky almost as soon as I sat down, and even though I wanted to dress up, I almost dreaded getting into that gown. With all the people that were expected, the temperature in the house would rise at least 20 degrees.

My hands shook, and I sat on them as I made myself comfortable on the swing. Part of me was nervous about what was going to happen that night, if the curse might show itself again, and with the heat being what it was, I knew my nerves would be on end by the time the ball started. Add in this interview, and it wasn’t surprising my hands had started shaking.

As I pushed the swing with my feet, my stomach churned. I rolled my eyes. The last thing I needed was diarrhea when I had to wear a hoop skirt I had trouble getting out of alone. My Granny taught me some deep breathing exercises to help when I got nervous before a test. I started doing that when the front door opened, and Bailey came out.

She smiled at me. "You must be nervous. You’re doing that breathing thing again."

I nodded. "It helps me relax. I’m wound up about so many things I had to do something."

"Being around me doesn’t help?" She pretended to look hurt. "I’m crushed."

"You know you’re a big help to me, but all of this is too much. I’m still worried about Gabriella’s curse happening tonight."

"Let that be the last of your worries. Try to forget about it for one night and just have fun. We can stay as late as you want on Sunday to talk to your Grandpa."

A tall woman walked up the stairs of the porch. She had the blackest hair I’d ever seen, and the color looked natural, and perfectly matched her tanned skin and brown eyes. She wore a crisp black summer suit, perfect makeup and not a hair on her head was out of place. Although I loved my red hair, I sometimes wished I looked as good as she did, and the bad part was, pretty women always intimidated me. Bailey and Granny always told me I was pretty, but because I do so well in school, I always thought I got more brains than beauty. I could hold my own with smart people but put me with someone more attractive than me, and I have problems.

I shook my head wondering where those thoughts were coming from.

The woman looked at Bailey and I and smiled. "I’m looking for Leighs Stone. Do you know where I can find her?"

I stuck out my hand and said, "I…I…uh, I’m Leigh." Bailey nudged me in the side. She knew about my weakness, so I tried not to stutter this time. "You must be Samantha."

"I am." She took out a notebook. "Your grandpa tells me you found Clarence Forsythe’s diary. Where was it located?"

"It was behind a brick in the fireplace in my grandpa’s study."

"How did you find it?" Grandpa said he’d known her for years but her voice carried an elegant European accent that I knew was not from around here.

Here was the tricky part. I didn’t know what to say, which made me stutter again. "Uh, well, I, uh, there was a brick that looked loose, kind of out of place. I was thinking about it later that night and wondered if there was something behind it. I decided to get up and go look. Grandpa wasn’t in the study, so I got his stepladder and touched the brick. It was loose, and I was able to pull it out. The diary was behind it."

She wrote as fast as I talked and filled several pages with what I said. I felt like I didn’t say enough for her to use that much but didn’t say anything about it.

"Was there anything else with the diary?"

"Yeah, I didn’t find it though. Grandpa looked behind the brick again the next day and felt back farther than I did. He found a cross necklace that belonged to Gabriella." I ran a hand through my hair. "Well, we figured out that it belonged to her after we read the diary."

She nodded her head. "How do you know it’s not a fake?"

"It looks old." I realized how stupid it sounded as soon as it left my mouth, but she had asked a dumb question. "I don’t think it was a forgery. Grandpa checked it against the handwriting in the other journals, and it matched."

"I’m going to write down what the journal says and print that in the story, but why don’t you tell me what it said."

I related the story Clarence had written back to her. I ended with, "He buried them somewhere on the property with the help of the slaves they were coming back to take to freedom."

She tapped the end of her pen on her notebook for a moment and then said, "What did you think of the story?"

"Well, I was horrified, of course. He should have told the truth and faced the consequences. Clarence buried his daughter and her husband in an unmarked grave like some kind of animal. He died the next day and didn’t even have to live with the decision he made. I was also disgusted by the way he talked about his slaves, especially comparing the shooting of one with the killing of a fox."

"Well, it was the times back then, you know?"

I rolled my eyes. "I realize that, but it was still shocking to read. I don’t think I’ve been around anyone that feels that way now. He also called the slaves darkies, and I wasn’t used to that either."

"You’d be surprised by the number of people who feel that way but just don’t show it." She chewed the end of her pen again and appeared lost in thought. "Sorry to change the subject, but isn’t this your first time back here in 13 years?"

"Yes, I’ve been living with my other grandparents since I was four years old." Where was she going with this?

"It’s the first time you’ve back here since your mother killed your father and then shot herself, right?"

I nodded but said, "What does this have to do with the story?"

"I thought it would make an interesting addition to the coverage of tonight’s ball and with the finding of Clarence’s journal."

"I don’t want a story done about it." I clenched my fists to stop my hands from shaking and took a deep breath. "We don’t need any publicity about what happened between my parents."

"What do you think happened that night?" She asked.

"I told you I don’t want to do a story about this." I wanted to tell her everything we had discovered, and only the thought of Grandpa asking me to stay silent on the ghost aspect kept me from doing it.

"Everyone in town wonders what happened with them and with all the others down through history. You know that kind of thing happens every 15 to 20 years."

"I know, but I don’t have any idea what happened. I was four years old when my parents died. I don’t remember anything from that night. Neither do the other women whose mothers did the same thing. It’s not a story, well, not one for the public anyway." I did the relaxation exercises to keep down my anger. Even if we found a way to stop Gabriella, the world would never know the truth. Here was someone who was asking questions about it, and I had to keep quiet so our family wouldn’t look any crazier than it already did. I jumped up from my seat. "This interview’s over. I won’t talk about my parents."

I started down the steps and took off at a run toward the dock and the pond. The faster I ran, the more the anger grew inside me, a feeling that had been developing since Grammy and I had our first fight and my conversation yesterday with Bailey at my parents’ home. I wanted to run as fast as I could and get away from all of it, the reporter, the curse, all the ghosts. I wanted to pack my bags and have Bailey drive me back home and just forget about all of it. I heard Bailey calling my name but I didn’t stop until I was standing on the edge of the dock.

Chapter 24

Bailey joined me on the dock just a few seconds later. I started yelling as soon as she came up. "I want to go home."

"Are you sure about that?"

She tried to take me in her arms, but I shrugged away. "I’m not sure about anything anymore. I just don’t know how much more I can take. These weird feminine feelings and memories, not being able to tell the reporters the truth, Grammy pretending like nothing happens and there are no ghosts, all this pressure to figure things out and no real way to stop it…I just want to go back where I’m comfortable."

"What feminine feelings and memories?" Bailey asked quietly.

I sighed and shared how my childhood memories were of being a girl and the thoughts that entered my mind when I saw the reporter as well as having been excited to dress up for the ball. When I finished, tears were falling freely down my face.

"I don’t know what to tell you baby." Bailey again reached for me again and this time I allowed her to pull me against her body. "Are you sure you haven’t always felt female and tried to fight it?"

I searched my memories and could not recall a single time I’d wanted to be female before coming to this damned place. I knew I was never overly masculine but I’d never felt as feminine as I had since coming here. "No, I’ve always been quite happy with myself."

Bailey smiled like she didn’t entirely believe me but was not going to push the subject. She shook her head. "I don’t think we should leave. We’ve found out so much. It would be a shame to stop now."

"We really haven’t found out all that much. We think we know what happens when the curse occurs, but we can’t be sure." I thought about Momma and Daddy coming to me that night and asking me to stop it. This was the only request that they had ever made to me, and it was one that came with great effort. How could I stop now? "I don’t want to stop, but it’s just not fair, Bailey."

"None of this is fair to you." She said as her lips touched my forehead. "Just remember I’m here for you no matter what."

"I lost my parents and will never get them back. The world believes my mother is a murderer and always will. I have to keep my mouth shut because Grammy doesn’t want to look bad in front of everyone. Well doesn’t she know we already look bad? Doesn’t she know we’re already talked about all over town?"

"We’ve talked about this before, Leigh. It isn’t just your Grammy not wanting to look bad. No one’s going to believe the story anyway. Would you believe it?"

I took a deep breath and lowered my voice. "No, no I wouldn’t. Well, I would now but not before coming down here and seeing ghosts for myself. Sometimes I wish we hadn’t ever come to this God forsaken place."

She placed a finger under my chin and tilted my head so I could look her in the eyes. "We came down here with a purpose, and we’ve succeeded with most of it."

"I know, but I just want to pitch a fit, throw something or break something, anything to make me feel less mad at the world right now."

A large stone rested on the end of the dock, and I picked it up and threw it in the water. As I watched the ripples recede, I felt some of my anger leave me. Even if we never told the world about Gabriella’s curse, I would know that my parents had loved each other, and my momma hadn’t killed my daddy in some fit of madness. I doubted I would ever get over the anger I felt at having missed out on growing up in that special home they had built just for us, but I had to let go of some of it eventually.

"Did throwing that make you feel better?" Bailey asked as she put her arm around me.

I laughed. "I think so. I know this sounds childish, but I don’t care. I’m going to say it again, it’s just not fair."

"There’s a lot of things not fair in this world, and it sucks when you’re the one going through it. I wish your parents could have been here to see you grow up, but that’s not the way it happened."

"I know, and I thought I had accepted that a long time ago, but I guess I hadn’t. It took us coming here for me to see that. Now I feel like I’m grieving them all over again."

"You were so young when they died that you probably don’t even remember grieving for them," she said. "Hell, I don’t know. I don’t know what it’s like to lose your parents at any age, but maybe you have to grieve them again when you’re an adult."

I looked out at the pond again. "It’s weird losing your parents when you’re little. The grief comes back every time you go through something major. Like when I was getting ready for the prom, all I wanted was my momma there. So even though it was a happy event for me, I was sad that she wasn’t there. It happens every single time."

"I don’t know what to say, except I’m sorry." Bailey had tears forming in her beautiful eyes.

"No one knows what to say, so sorry is pretty good. I think what made me maddest about that reporter was I wanted to answer her truthfully about all of it. Gabriella leading me to the diary, figuring out that she probably takes possession of the woman who commits the murder-suicide, and I couldn’t, because nobody’s going to believe a word of the damn story."

"You’re just going to have to realize that, like you said earlier, you knowing the truth is enough. Your family is going to know the truth. The people that matter to you are going to know. That’s what’s important, not the whole world knowing."

"How did you get to be so smart?" I wiped my eyes and smiled at her.

"Hanging around the right people, I guess." She smiled back at me and took my hand. "Let’s go back up to the house."

We started the walk back, and I looked over at the yard swing. My momma sat in it with my daddy pushing her from behind. Every so often, she looked back at him and smiled. Knowing they had loved each other was going to have to be enough to get me through this. I had no doubts at all now that Gabriella had caused all of this.

In spite of the pain she had caused me, I didn’t hate Gabriella. I felt sorry for her. Her father ripped her life away from her, the chance to grow old with her husband and to raise her daughter. I think she wanted someone else to hurt as much as she had. How could you hate someone who was so filled with pain that they struck out at others to make them hurt, too? She deserved our pity, and she deserved some rest and peace. I hoped we were able to help her find it.

As we made our way closer to the house, I noticed the workers, stringing lights on the columns and the trees in front. Tables with white clothes and magnolia blossom centerpieces dotted the area around the house. A cooling breeze blew through the limbs, and I leaned my head back to enjoy it for a minute, to cool off my heated face. With so many people coming, some were bound to want to go outside for air, so Grammy was making it as comfortable as she could out there for them.

Grammy had already explained that the family would eat dinner together early before the ball and then exit the dining area to get ready. While we were getting ready, the workers she hired would finish off the last of the decorating and began welcoming anyone arriving early and serving them appetizers.

Grandpa met us at the door and steered Bailey away. "We have your suit for the ball tonight. I’m glad it made it. You would really stand out if you weren’t in period clothes."

I wandered around the house alone, which seemed to be full of even more people than the night before. Most of them had varying shades of red hair, strawberry blonde, auburn and just a few with the flame red hair like I had. Some of the family members whispered behind their hands, and I heard snatches of conversation like, "She’s Elizabeth’s daughter" or "You know, the one who killed her husband."

I hurried up the stairs and decided to go in my parents’ room once again. That and their new home were the two places I felt closest to them. I kept the key in my pocket every day since I had gotten it from Uncle Kerry, so I let myself in. The room held a special spirit, and if I listened hard enough, I could almost hear Momma saying my name. Pretty soon, I’d be going home to Tennessee, and even though a huge part of me wanted nothing more, I knew I’d miss this link to my parents when I did.

I caressed the white eyelet comforter on the bed and sat down on the edge. Momma used to sit me there between her legs to brush my long red hair. Back then, it had been almost to my waist. I closed my eyes and leaned my head back, just like I had done as a child. The gentle strokes of her brush often had me nearly asleep after my bath, and I felt so safe there that I often did go to sleep, only to waken much later in my own bed.

I felt myself drifting off to sleep, even though I needed to get up and take a shower to dress before dinner. As I floated off into dreamland, I knew as soon as my eyes shut I would have my dream again.

Only this time, things were different. I saw so much more. I heard Momma tell Daddy that she wasn’t Elizabeth. She told him she wasn’t going to allow this family to have any peace. The voice was different than what I remembered, a little more Southern, a lot slower. In fact, she sounded almost drunk. A wild expression filled her face, contorting her beautiful features into something that resembled that scary painting called "The Scream." Momma never pulled the trigger in the dream. Instead, she turned back into herself and said, "Leigha, be careful. Be aware of what is going on around you."

I tried to talk to her, to ask her what she meant, but the dream faded away. Gabriella stood over me and once again, she asked me to help her find peace. I asked her how, but she never answered. All she said over and over again was, "Please help me find peace. Help me find a way to stop this."

In the dream, I made her all kinds of promises. I told her we would find her body and lay her to rest properly. I promised to burn sage like the Web site talked about. I explained to her we would have someone come in to rid the home of the spirits and help her cross over. To all of this, she just shook her head and said, "We don’t have time for that. You have to stop me before it happens again."

A frantic knocking on the door woke me up. I pushed my hair back off my shoulders and opened it to find Bailey standing there. She had a garment bag over her shoulder and a worried expression on her face.

"We’ve been looking for you. It’s almost time for dinner. You’ve got to be there because your grandpa is going to make the announcement about solving the mystery."

I didn’t tell her about my dream. I didn’t think it really mattered and figured it all came about because of the disturbing feelings I had following the interview with the reporter. Even though I wanted to go home, my subconscious was telling me I had a job to finish before I could. I had to find peace for Gabriella, one way or another.

Chapter 25

I took my shower without washing my hair. I somehow knew it would hold the style better if I didn’t, plus I just didn’t have time to dry it before dinner. I only brought the one dressy outfit with me, as I wasn’t sure if I would need one or not. It was a pair of black pants with a blue button up oxford shirt. If I wasn’t in jeans and t-shirts, it was because I was about to go to bed in my pajamas. I slipped the outfit on and met Bailey at the door. She had hurried back to her cabin and changed into a pair of dress pants, button down shirt that was very close to what I had on.

I told her she looked beautiful as ever and she said, "You should see the outfit your Grandpa gave me to wear tonight. I think I’ll keep it a surprise." She laughed. "I never thought I’d be caught up in fashion like this."

I laughed, too, took her arm and walked down the stairs. We found our names on the big table in the room and sat down. Uncle Kerry sat across from us and beside him were his wife Nora, Caroline and her husband Jeffrey along with Elizabeth, and Uncle Casey and his wife. Grandpa had already mentioned he was going to make a big announcement, and the rest of the room buzzed with what it could be. Uncle Kerry grinned at me, and I smiled back to let him know I was fine with keeping the secret. More people filed into the room and took seats at the smaller tables around the bigger one. Soon, everyone was inside, and Grandpa walked to the front of the room.

He cleared his throat, and his voice boomed out across all of us. He welcomed everyone and then said, "I know y’all all want to eat the good food Lena has prepared but first I want to share with you some news and then we’ll have a prayer and eat."

He took a drink of sweet tea. I could tell he liked the dramatic way he was making everyone wait for him. Some people in the room looked excited at what he was going to say, sitting on the edge of their seats, while others, especially the other teenagers, had this far-away look in their eyes as though they didn’t care one bit what he was about to tell them. Grammy’s lips were a straight line, and she rubbed her forehead. I knew she was worried about the bad name she thought this might give to the family.

"After 155 years, the mystery of Gabriella and Garrett’s disappearance has been solved." A buzz went through the room. "My granddaughter, Leigha, found Clarence’s last journal, and in it, he admitted that he accidentally killed the couple and buried them on the property. The story is going to break tomorrow in our local newspaper, but I’m sure it’s going to get national coverage. I’m excited to finally have an answer to his mystery even though it was a tragedy caused by one of our ancestors." He held up his hand and said, "Now, let’s pray and then eat." During his prayer, he mentioned Gabriella, Garrett and Clarence and then asked for God to watch over the night’s upcoming events.

My lips pursed at my grandfather introducing me as his granddaughter. Bailey took my hand and shook her head. She was right, this was not the time to correct his mistake. If I did, it would make me arriving to the ball in the green satin gown all the more embarrassing.

I hoped tonight was peaceful for all of us with no showing of the curse. It didn’t help knowing it wasn’t time for another one to happen. Just realizing my parents died on the night of one of these balls was enough to spook me. I took a deep breath and tried not to be noticeable as I did the relaxation exercises Granny had taught me. Bailey must have realized what I was going through as she refused to release my hand and squeezed it for moral support.

Workers brought out trays of food. Uncle Kerry leaned over and said, "Since many of us can’t get together at Thanksgiving and Christmas, Grandpa and Grammy always serve turkey and dressing and all the trimmings at our reunion."

The platters were sent around the table, and I took a bit of turkey and more of the cornbread dressing, taking in the heavy sage Miss Lena used to season it. The sage made me think of my dream and all the promises I had made to Gabriella. Tomorrow, I was going to try to achieve a least a few of them.

I filled my plate as each platter of food came around. Miss Lena had fixed homemade yeast rolls, green beans, sweet potato casserole with marshmallows on top – another of my favorites – homemade macaroni and cheese, fried green tomatoes, cranberry sauce and mashed potatoes. I didn’t take any of the tomatoes or the cranberry sauce. The food looked delicious and smelled even better, but my stomach churned again. I wanted to eat, but my nerves had started in. If the curse did happen tonight, I wasn’t sure I would know if it was happening. Momma told me to be on guard in the dream, so I had to keep my eyes and ears open, but if the house really did something to people, maybe I wouldn’t even realize anything was happening until it was over.

As I pushed the food around on my plate, Bailey looked over at me. "Don’t worry and eat," she said. "Everything will be fine."

I wanted to ask her how she could say that for sure, but instead, I tried to eat as much as I could until my stomach churned so much I had to stop. The food really was wonderful, and I hated that my nerves were keeping me from enjoying it.

As soon as we all finished dessert, Grandpa dismissed us to get ready for the ball. Caroline stopped me before I got to the doors of the dining room. "I thought we could get ready together," she said. "I could help you with your hair. Elizabeth’s going to wear one of your old dresses tonight, too."

Instead of asking why I had old dresses, a sudden thought gripped me. "It’s not the one from the night…"

"Oh, no, no, no," she said, interrupting me. "It’s the one from the year before. She’s a little bit smaller than you were at that age."

I told Bailey bye at the door and went upstairs with Caroline. She said she had a hairnet just like the ones worn by the characters in "Gone with the Wind," and knew how to arrange my hair inside of it. She also promised to help me with the hoops and the corset. Jeff was going to get ready in the bathroom down the hallway because the room would be too crowded with all of us in there.

We went into her bedroom, and I noticed two doors in the room. I knew one must be a closet and wondered if Elizabeth slept in the other one, so I asked her about it.

"That’s her room, but most of the time she winds up with us. There are a few rooms here that have smaller ones off to the side. I think they used to be dressing rooms, but now, families with small children are given those so parents can have their own space."

She sat me down in a chair and brought out a brush and some bobby pins. I took the hairnet when she gave it to me and was glad to see it was not the ones that lunch ladies wear. It had little yellow bows around the top. "How are you going to do my hair to go in this net?"

"Well, if we want to be fancy, we call it a chignon, but really, it’s just a low bun. Then, we’ll pull the hairnet around it."

She parted the front down the middle and pulled it around. It didn’t take her long to have it all together, and she grabbed a mirror for me to look. My red hair gently waved around to where it was held in the net. The little yellow bows didn’t clash as bad with my red hair as I thought they would. "Will you do my make-up, too?" I asked her. "I don’t normally wear a lot."

"I won’t put as much on you as I did for the portrait," she said. "Just some mascara and a little light color on your cheeks, so they’ll look like they’ve been pinched, and maybe some lip gloss." She fussed around me until she finished. She held up the mirror again. "What do you think?"

I gave her a hug. "You did great. I look wonderful. This will go so well with the dress."

She laughed, then rubbed a hand across her forehead. "I’ve got a little bit of a headache, but I’ll be fine. Probably just from all of the excitement. I love dressing up and dancing."

"I’ve never really liked it too much, but I think this might be fun for a change."

Elizabeth came out of their bedroom, and Caroline helped her to dress. She did her hair in the same ringlets I had worn for the portrait. I remembered a line from Gone with the Wind and leaned down to say, "You look mighty pretty, precious."

Caroline grinned up at me, and I knew she remembered the same thing. She instructed Elizabeth to stay still and not get dirty. The child was already yawning, and I knew she wouldn’t make it through the whole night. I guessed Caroline would probably bring her to bed and then come back down to the ball.

Caroline asked me to go and change into the underwear to wear with the dress, and when I came back out, she helped me with the hoops and corset, then lowered the dress over my head. I wasn’t sure how to sit down, so I stood up. Caroline noticed me looking at the chair with longing and laughed. "It’s hard to know how to sit down in one of those, isn’t it? You have to sit on the center of the hoop, not on the back of it."

The first time I tried it, the skirt flipped up and showed off everything I had. Caroline laughed and showed me again how to do it. I did better the second time by lifting the skirt and hoop about two inches off the ground. I still didn’t see how women managed to wear these all the time.

Caroline came out of her bathroom dressed in the same kind of underwear I had on. I helped her with the corset and the hoop. She took her dress off the hanger, and I helped her pull it on. It was a pale green, slightly off the shoulder with a thick navy trim around the bottom, which featured lace all around. The same lace decorated the sleeves of her dress. She handed me a pair of white gloves and put on a pair herself.

Just as Caroline said, "I guess we’re ready to go," a knock sounded on the door. I opened it to find Bailey staring at me with a grin.

Chapter 26

Bailey swept into a low bow and straightened up. "Why if it isn’t Miss Carolina and Miss Leigha," she said with a very affected Southern accent, "looking as lovely as a Georgia peach kissed by the morning dew." She winked as us.

Caroline moved out in the hallway first and took her arm. She lowered her eyelashes and then flashed her dimples at her. "Mr. Clinton, your charms are legendary." Her accent was just as affected as Bailey’s was.

I slipped my hand around her elbow, and we walked down the hallway with Elizabeth in front of us. Caroline’s husband, Jeff, waited at the top of the stairs. He smiled over at us and said, "Are y’all ready to dance the night away?"

Caroline took his arm this time, and Bailey whispered in my ear. "I don’t really understand the big deal about the old Southern ways at all, but it is kind of fun to dress up and pretend."

If I did not know she was a beautiful girl I never would have guessed it as she looked like a strikingly handsome young man in her suit.

"I guess it’s kind of like the Sons of Confederate Veterans group they have at home," I said. "I always wanted to tell them that we lost the war and get over it."

She laughed, and we made our way down the stairs. I wobbled in my heels and had to tighten my grip on Bailey’s arm. If the hoops weren’t bad enough, I just knew I would twist an ankle in these damn shoes.

When we got to the bottom of the stairs, Bailey stopped in front of me. "You haven’t said anything at all about my costume."

She wore a black jacket with a matching cravat, black pinstriped pants, a white button down shirt with a lavender shawl collar vest. I whistled at her and said, "You are quite handsome sir and I think we make a beautiful couple. Would you like to dance?"

She put my hand on her arm and said, "The pleasure would be mine."

As we started walking, I leaned as close the dress would allow. "You really do look great but I wish our outfits were reversed."

Bailey laughed loud enough to draw the attention of those around us before kissing my cheek. "Not me. I think you are the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen. I always love seeing you dressed up like this."

I blushed as I looked at the woman I loved. "If you say so."

We went into the ballroom, which was rapidly filling up with people. I saw Grammy and Grandpa. He was dressed very much like Bailey was, but Grammy wore a beautiful dove gray gown featuring pointed puff sleeves and lace neckline. Everywhere I looked a sea of colorful dresses washed over me, and the swishing of the skirts filled the room since the band hadn’t started playing yet. They were taking their places on the raised platform at the front of the ballroom.

As they were seated, Grandpa walked up the microphone. I wondered if he was going to make an announcement about the mystery of Gabriella and Garrett, but I was surprised when he said, "Take your partners for the Virginia Reel."

Bailey grabbed my hand, and we lined up in front of another group Caroline and Jeff were a part of. We bowed to each other as the music started and danced away. My heels threatened to trip me up several times, but I always caught myself before I fell out of step. By the time the dance was done, I was laughing and out of breath. We skipped the next set and went to get some punch.

"This is a lot more fun than the prom," I yelled over the music.

"I know. I wonder what everyone would say if we tried to do this next year."

"We’d be laughed out of town." I said thinking of how our hometown would react to the way we were dressed. "Besides, no one’s going to think doing old dances to old music is any fun."

"They’d be wrong," she said and grinned at me. "We’ll have to come back every year and do this again."

When a waltz started up, she grabbed my hand again and pulled me out on the floor to dance. Uncle Kerry and his wife danced by us, and he smiled at me. I also saw Uncle Casey and his wife dancing, along with Suzanne and Kate with their husbands. Suzanne had a smile on her face, so I knew she was glad to be back.

They met up with us at the punch table after the dance, and Suzanne gave me a hug. "I’m so glad you talked me into coming back. It’s been painful but also therapeutic. Tonight has been wonderful."

Kate agreed. "I’m glad we know now what happened. I could never really enjoy myself each year when I came for the reunion, but even though we haven’t figured out how to stop it, I know that my mother didn’t mean to kill my father. Now, I can relax and just have fun with my husband and the rest of the family while I’m here."

I hugged both of them again, relieved they chose not to mention how I was dressed and we were soon joined by Uncle Kerry. He leaned over to me and said, "Have you seen any signs of Gabriella tonight?"

I shook my head. "I don’t think it’s going to be this year. Hopefully, we can find a way to lay her to rest before she strikes again."

"I hope so, too," he said. "I want a dance later on with all three of you."

His wife beckoned him back out on the dance floor, and Bailey pulled me out to do a dance I’d never seen before. I couldn’t hear her over the music to find out the name of it, but I watched her feet and tried to keep up with it. This one was harder than the Virginia Reel or the Waltz, and I stumbled a couple of times. Bailey righted me each time and grinned when she did it. I think she was enjoying being a better dancer than me.

When the next song ended, Grandpa and the band took a break. Bailey lead me outside to the porch swing, but I chose to stand, afraid I wouldn’t get it right again and my dress would fly up. A gentle breeze blew through the trees, cooling me off and wafting the scent of the magnolia blossoms entwined around the column over me. I leaned my head back and closed my eyes, and the sound of crying washed over me. I opened my eyes back up and looked at Bailey. "Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?" She pushed the swing with her foot and leaned her head back.

"I guess it was just the wind." I let it go and forced myself not to think about the curse. It wasn’t going to happen tonight. It was too soon for it, I told myself over and over again.

Bailey stood up, walked over to me and kissed me. "If you made that same proposal tonight that you did back at the house yesterday, I wouldn’t say no," she whispered.

I smiled at her. "Why sir, are you taking liberties with me?"

"No ma’am, but I would if you allowed me to."

I kissed her again and said, "We’ll see. Let’s just enjoy the ball and go from there."

The band started playing inside again, but Bailey grabbed my hand. "Let’s go for a little walk and then come back and dance some more."

We weren’t the only ones with that idea. Women and men walked over the grounds with champagne glasses in their hands. People our age carried glass cups filled with the green punch Grammy had Miss Lena make. No one was at the swing we sat in our first day at the plantation, and Bailey helped me sit down. I managed to not flip my skirts up this time but only barely. She laughed at me and said, "I’m so glad I don’t have to wear something like that."

I glared at her, not really meaning it. "I wish you would. I’d take some pictures to show the softball team."

She laughed and sat down beside me, even though the skirt took up most of the room on the swing. She held my hand and pushed with her foot. Neither of us said a word, just stared up at the sky and the stars. I was glad it was a clear night and not raining. She rubbed my bare shoulders, and a shiver went down my back. She then played with my earrings. "I’m glad I came with you," she said. "It makes me feel good that I was here to comfort you when you needed it the most."

I grabbed her hand and gave it a squeeze. "I’m glad it was you, too. None of my friends really understand how I feel about my parents and why it affects me like it does. You’ve never questioned it."

"I know you’re worried about what will happen when I go off to school in the fall, but we won’t be that far from each other. I promise to come see you every weekend, and if I can get away during the week, too. I love you, Leigha, even more now after going through all of this with you."

I leaned my head against her shoulder. "I love you, too, Bailey. I think you’re right. Tonight should be the night."

She kissed me again and pulled me to my feet. "I think your Grammy and Grandpa are going to come looking for us if we don’t go back in. Maybe you can sneak down to the cabin after everyone goes to bed."

We walked back to the house in silence. Uncle Kerry grabbed my hand as we walked in and asked if we could dance. I agreed, and Bailey asked Kate to dance as her husband had decided to sit the next one out. As we were dancing, I looked around the room but didn’t see Caroline or Jeff anywhere around.

I yelled above the band, "Where are Caroline and Jeff?"

"Caroline went to bed with a headache. Jeff has gone upstairs to check on her."

All of a sudden, it hit me. It was going to happen tonight. I knew why momma had told me to be careful and on the lookout. It was almost exactly like what happened with my momma and daddy, except Caroline had a headache and wasn’t necessarily going to check on Elizabeth. I stopped right in the middle of the dance floor. "Uncle Kerry, it’s going to happen again tonight. Caroline’s going to kill Jeff and herself if we don’t stop her."

Chapter 27

Uncle Kerry took off running from the ballroom, pushing people out of his way without saying a word. Bailey saw him, and I motioned for her and Kate to join us. I started running myself and twisted my ankles twice before I made it to the stairs. I threw the shoes to the side, feeling a bit like Cinderella at the ball, only no evil stepmother was waiting for me, just a ghost out for vengeance.

Uncle Kerry made it to the room before I did, and when I got there, he had the door flung open and was going inside. I saw Caroline with the gun pointed at Jeff and heard him pleading with her not to do it. I moved into the room and said, "Gabriella, you don’t want to do this."

"Yes, I do. I want someone else to know the pain I felt the night my father killed me. I’ve seen the joy all of these families have with their daughters, and I was robbed of that. I want to make everyone feel that way," Caroline said, only it wasn’t her voice. She sounded more like the accent she had affected earlier in the evening.

I moved farther into the room, closer to her and said, "I know you don’t like doing this. Your guilt is what causes you to roam the halls at night, crying. Please put down the gun and help us stop you from hurting anyone again."

She lowered the gun, but when she saw all the people around her, she raised it back up again. "This was the only way I knew how to relieve my pain. I wanted someone to feel as sad as I do. Even though it causes me so much guilt, it also helps, if only for a short period of time."

Uncle Kerry moved closer to her. "Think of your daughter Leigha. I’m sure she lived her life in pain, not knowing what happened to her parents. Do you want to put another child through that?"

Caroline/Gabriella looked around the room again. "I only thought of my pain, no one else’s."

"I was one of those children who were hurt by your actions," I said. "So were Kate and Suzanne. We always wondered what happened with our parents to cause that. Don’t put Caroline’s little girl through that, please."

She lowered the gun again, and Uncle Kerry took the opportunity to take it from her. I breathed a sigh of relief. Caroline’s face held a look of confusion. "I don’t know if I can stop it now. It’s been going on for too long. I need to find rest. If I can do that, I know it will stop."

"How can we help you find the rest you need?" Suzanne asked.

"Bury my husband and I in the family cemetery beside our daughter. Only then will I be able to stop this and leave the family in peace."

A black ball of light shot out of Caroline and flew through the window. She collapsed on the floor, and Jeff and Uncle Kerry helped her onto the bed. Uncle Kerry volunteered to take Elizabeth to Grammy and Grandpa and let them know what happened. He also planned to see how many people were still at the ball and if anyone else knew what had happened. Suzanne, Kate, Bailey and I decided to stay with Caroline and Jeff until she woke up.

Jeff sat on the bed with her and so did I. He looked at all of us and said, "What the hell just happened here? All of y’all seem to know what was going on, but I’m in the dark."

We explained to him all about the family curse, which he already knew about. Then, we told him what all we had discovered. "So the night of the curse, Gabriella’s spirit take control of the woman’s mind, and she then kills her husband and herself. It all goes back to Clarence and the fact he murdered his daughter and son-in-law," I said.

"That’s so hard to believe. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I’d say all of you were crazy, but it’s the only explanation. She had a completely different voice and everything," he said, as he ran his hand over face. "I’ve never experienced anything like it."

"Neither have we, not that we can remember anyway," Suzanne said. "I guess the three of us were there when it happened, but none of us remembered it."

Uncle Kerry came back to the room and said Grandpa was downstairs wrapping things up with the guests. The band was supposed to stop playing at midnight, and when I checked my watch, I saw that they only had about 15 minutes left. Caroline was still out and showed no signs of regaining consciousness. Jeff hovered over, feeling her forehead and checking her pulse every now and then. If she didn’t wake up soon, we were going to have to do something.

Grammy came into the room and looked at all of us. "What is this nonsense about a spirit possession?" She said.

"It’s not nonsense, Grammy," I said and gave her the same story I had told Jeff. "You’re going to have to accept the fact that it happened."

"I can’t believe it," she said. "I will not believe it."

Jeff stood up. "I saw it with my own eyes, Ava. I wouldn’t have believed the story either, but it’s the only explanation. Would Caroline have pointed a gun at me?"

"No, she wouldn’t, but I never thought any of the others would have done it either." She put her hands on her hips. "She just went insane, like Elizabeth did, and Suzanne and Kate’s mothers, too."

He walked over to her until he was standing directly in front of her. "My wife did not lose her mind. Her voice was completely different. Her facial features even changed somewhat. I won’t hear another word about insanity, especially not after she wakes up. I don’t know what being possessed has done to her, but she doesn’t need to hear you say she’s crazy."

Uncle Kerry put his arm on Jeff’s shoulder. "I completely agree. Momma, if you had seen this, you would think the same thing we do."

She put her hand over her face. "This can never get out, never. Everyone will think we’re crazy for believing it."

"What does it matter what everyone thinks anyway?" I said.

She pulled herself up to her full height. "Young lady, this family has an important social standing. I do not want that damaged."

"That proves it right there!" I said angrily I stood and barged to her. "I’m not a young lady yet you made me dress as one. You are too concerned about your precious reputation to care about anyone but yourself."

I laughed. I couldn’t help it. "Do you honestly think that it hasn’t been damaged over the years? Everyone knows about the ghosts and the family curse. Every time I’ve been to town, someone has mentioned it to me. Which is worse, them thinking the women in this family go crazy and kill their husbands and themselves or thinking we’re crazy because we believe the ghost made them do it?"

She rolled her eyes. "They don’t think I’m crazy or anyone else is crazy, just the ones who do it. I refuse to allow this to get out."

"Momma, no one is planning to call reporters out here to tell them about this. We’re going to keep it to ourselves, but it’s time you quit worrying so much about what the public thinks about this family. It’s driving you to distraction and making you treat your family worse than you do your friends or the society you’re so worried about," Uncle Kerry said. "Besides, we think we’ve found a way to stop this from happening again."

She sat down in the chair behind her. "How are you going to do that?"

"Gabriella asked us to lay her body to rest. I think we should honor that," I said.

"But they could be buried anywhere on the property," Grammy said.

"I think I have an answer for that," said a weak voice from the direction of the bed. We all looked over. Caroline sat up. "While she possessed my mind, Gabriella showed me where she and Garrett are buried. I can show you."

Jeff came back over to her and sat down beside her. "Not tonight, you’re not. I think you should rest."

"You’re right. I can’t do it tonight. Just sitting up has drained me. I feel like I do after I get over one of those migraines I’ve been having," she said.

We all agreed to leave but congregated outside her bedroom door. Grammy looked at me and said, "I am still having a hard time accepting that this is the answer to everything, but Kerry is right. I do owe you an apology, Leigha. I’ve treated you rather nastily since you came here, when all you were trying to do was help."

I didn’t really know what to say to her about this. She hurt me each time she rebuked me for believing in the ghosts, and said all of our mothers were insane. "I think you owe Suzanne and Kate an apology, too. You’ve said terrible things about all our mothers."

"I know, and I’m sorry." Tears filled her eyes. "You have to understand. I’ve never told anyone this before, and it’s going to be hard to tell you now. I came from nothing. My family tree is filled with criminals." She wiped at her eyes. "My father was a drunk and beat up my mother every night. Eventually, my older brother got tired of it and killed him. He went to jail for saving her life, and as soon as I finished school, I left town. I wanted to forget all of that."

"So that’s why you’d never talk about your parents," Uncle Kerry said. "You always said they were dead and left it at that. I just figured it was because it hurt you too much to talk about them."

"It did, and my momma is dead. She died a few years after I left. My little sister wrote and told me. I felt like I was talked about my entire life. I thought once I married into this prestigious family, that would change. I was determined to make sure no one ever talked about me again."

I felt sorry for her. I had only had a small taste of people talking about me since I’d been here, and I knew I didn’t like it. The thought of growing up in that kind of household made my pity for her grow even more. I couldn’t imagine going through that every day. I put my arm around her shoulders. "I accept your apology, but the truth is, we’re always going to be talked about. People will always find some way to bring you down."

Kate nodded. "Even if we don’t hear them talking about us, they still are. You just have to accept it and move on."

"You can’t hold yourself responsible for what the people in your family are like," Suzanne said. "That’s one thing I’ve come to realize growing up believing my mother killed my father."

She nodded her head. "You’re right. I’ve tried to block out what Elizabeth did and just pretend it didn’t happen. I knew about the family curse after we were married, but I never thought one of my children would be a part of it. When it happened, I was afraid she inherited something from my side of the family, too. I blamed it on insanity because that was the only option I had, the one answer that might keep people from talking about us." She frowned as she looked at me. "That’s why I had to make the arrangements for you that I did. I promise to right my wrongs tomorrow."

Grandpa joined us out in the hallway, and we had to tell the story yet again. By this time, I was tired of the old dress, the hoop skirts, the corset, anything Southern and wanted to go to bed. Ghost possessions could wait until the morning when Caroline could take us to where Gabriella and Garrett were buried. I told everyone good night, and Bailey followed me to my room.

"I guess this means our plans for later tonight aren’t going to happen," she said with a wistful grin.

I nodded my head. "I’m sorry. I’m just too tired for anything."

She took my hand. "Don’t worry about it. Too much has happened for us to focus on anything else. We’ll find exactly the right time." She kissed my lips and turned to go.

"Bailey," I called after her. "I love you. I really am glad you were the one here with me when all this happened."

Chapter 28

The next day broke beautiful and clear. I looked out the window and was glad for no rain, both because of us leaving but also because Caroline planned to show us where Gabriella was buried. As I was leaving my bedroom, I met Caroline on the stairs. "How are you feeling today?"

"Tired and strange." She smiled. "I feel like I have another person’s memories in my head. It’s so strange, because I can remember what happened to Gabriella just as if I had experienced it."

"I have no idea what that’s like and hope I never do," I said. "Do you feel up to taking us to where Gabriella and Garrett are buried?"

She nodded. "I plan to do it as soon as we finish eating breakfast. I want Gabriella laid to rest as soon as possible. I don’t want to take the chance of her ever possessing me again."

I gave her a hug. "I feel the same way. This family has had enough tragedy over the years. I don’t want anyone else to experience it."

"We have you to thank for stopping it," she said. "If you hadn’t put it all together, Jeff and I might not be here today." Her eyes misted over. "I don’t even like to think about that."

"You don’t have to thank me. This was what I came down here for really." I frowned. "Well, I wanted to meet all of you, too, but my parents came to me in a dream and asked me to do something to stop the curse."

After breakfast was over, we all met on the front porch – Grammy and Grandpa, Jeff and Caroline, Uncle Kerry with a shovel, Suzanne, Kate and Bailey and I. Grammy finally looked more at peace than I had ever seen her. She laid some ghosts to rest herself last night, even if they hadn’t been the spiritual kind. I smiled at her, and she returned it to me. Maybe now we’d really be able to get to know each other without her worrying about how what I said or did affected the family’s image. Heck, maybe Grammy would get to know her whole family since she wouldn’t be thinking about it anymore.

Before we set off, Caroline recounted what she found out when Gabriella’s spirit had taken possession of her. "Gabriella and Garrett came back to free Samuel and Harriet that night. She approached them about a month before to ask them if they would be willing to go. Samuel had been a slave on the plantation while she was growing up, and they had become secret friends. Her father punished him for something minor a few days before she asked, and Gabriella didn’t want to see it happen again.

"They came back and were getting them loaded up in the wagon when Clarence’s hunting dogs came sniffing around. They hunted more than animals. He used them whenever a slave tried to get away. For the most part, Clarence treated his slaves better than some plantation owners, but he still believed he owned them and could do as he pleased with them. Even though the dogs recognized Gabriella and Garrett, they did not like that Samuel and Harriet were getting in the wagon, as they had never been allowed to do so before.

"Garrett tried to get the dogs away, and as he was doing it, Clarence shot him. Gabriella rushed over to his side, and she was shot, too. When Clarence found them, she was still alive but barely. She lived long enough to curse him and his family because he had taken her away from her daughter, her largest source of happiness. I know exactly where he took the bodies because Gabriella showed that to me, too. It’s on the back part of the plantation, where we do the demonstrations of butter churning and soap making."

We all listened silently, engrossed in her story. She told it like it had happened to her, and I supposed she probably felt like it had since Gabriella had been inside her mind.

The day was hot, and the hike to the back of the plantation took about 20 minutes. I had never been to this part before. A huge clearing waited for us, and I could see how it would be perfect for doing demonstrations. Caroline walked around for a bit and finally stopped in one spot.

"I believe this is it," she said. "From the position Clarence buried them, he could see a full view of the house."

I turned to look, and she was right. I also hoped this was where they were buried. Uncle Kerry went right to work with the shovel, but before he could scoop out two mounds of dirt, Uncle Casey arrived with a policeman in tow. He pulled Uncle Kerry aside and whispered something to him. I caught a little of what he was saying. "We can’t dig up bodies without the police being here. I didn’t want to take any chances."

I wondered what story he told them about how we had found out where they were buried. Even though Grammy didn’t seem to care anymore about sparing the family’s reputation, none of us really wanted what happened with Caroline and Jeff to get out. She didn’t need anyone looking at her and talking about her and waiting for her to snap again, because no one was really going to believe she had been possessed.

Uncle Kerry went back to digging. The men took turns going about it until I was sure they weren’t going to find anything. About four feet down in the red clay dirt, he said he hit something hard. We all looked in the hole and sure enough, we saw bones, rusty-colored ones, but bones for sure. The policeman stopped the digging and said he was going to have to call in some other people.

"We’re going to have to date them before you folks can do anything with them," he said. "I know you found a journal stating the bones are your ancestors, but we have to be sure. After that, you can bury them properly."

The state forensics team came out, and we all watched them extract the bones carefully and with precision. They also treated them with reverence, something that shocked me. I figured in their line of work, they wouldn’t care about long dead bodies, but I was glad of it. I smiled to a few of them. Gabriella and Garrett’s bodies deserved respect, even if her spirit caused our family so much pain.

I wiped sweat off my forehead and lifted my long hair off my neck. The sun beat down on us, and I could feel my skin burning. I didn’t care. I wanted to wait until the bodies were both exposed and out of the ground. Bailey held my hand the whole time. Finally, they lifted one set of bones out of the ground and then another.

The lead forensics man walked over to us. He took his hat off and wiped away the sweat. "I’m sure these have been in the ground a long time, but we gotta make sure. It’ll be a few weeks before we have the results back. I’d like to see the journal you found, too."

Grandpa promised it to him. "It’s up at the house. I’ll get it for you before you leave."

"How in the world did you figure out where they were buried? Did the journal say exactly where to find them?"

"No, not really," Grandpa said, "but I know this farm like the back of my hand. I kind of figured it out from what he had written."

I grinned at Grandpa from behind the policeman’s back. He smiled back. I knew he had come up with the lie on the spur of the moment because he had been in the dark about where they were as much as we were. He then turned red and looked away. I don’t think he was used to lying this much.

My phone jingled, letting me know I had a text message. It was from Granny, asking if we had left yet. I punched in that we hadn’t but would be soon. I promised to fill her in on everything as soon as we got home. I looked at the time and saw that it was almost two in the afternoon. We had been out there most of the day. Even though I hated to leave, I knew it was time. The bodies were out of the ground, and nothing else was holding us there. I packed my bags that morning before coming downstairs, and I knew Bailey had, too.

I looked at her. "I think it’s time to go."

"Yeah, it will be late getting back. I have to go to work tomorrow." She took my hand and led me over to Grammy and Grandpa. She thanked them for their hospitality and then stepped back for us to have time alone.

Grammy grabbed my hand and quickly led me back to the house. "I promised you to make everything right." She looked down at the ground and began crying. "When everything happened with your mother I was scared it would also happen to you in the future. An old friend came to me. She said she could do things." She looked at me with wide eyes. "Things nobody would believe. She made me a promise that nothing like that would happen to you if I allowed her to have an hour alone with you."

She gripped my hand so tight it hurt. "I was desperate. With my daughter gone, you were the most important thing in my life. I brought you to her and left. When I returned she had done as promised. You became physically male and your father’s parent had no memory of you as a girl. I let them take you and raise you as a boy so the family curse would never touch you."

I backed away from her, my mind could not begin to process what she’d told me but after everything I'd experienced since arriving, I believed her. "If you wanted me to be a boy then why have you treated me like a girl since I got here?"

Grammy tried to sniff away her tears. "I think Gabriella recognized what I’d done and made everyone treat you the way you should have been treated."

I nodded, believing that if Gabriella could make everyone ignore the signs of her possession then she could make everyone see through whatever Grammy had someone do to me."

She nodded over my shoulder to someone. "Please make my granddaughter whole again."

I turned just in time to see Miss Lena. She placed a hand on my shoulder. "All right Garrett, you can come out now. We need our girl back." I tried to scream as she made contact but nothing came out of my mouth before darkness enveloped me.

***

"Thank you, my darling girl." My mother said while waking me by kissing my forehead. "No one will ever again endure what we have."

I opened my eyes as my father ran a finger down my cheek. "I’m so proud of you Leigha. Thank you for allowing us to finally cross over."

I knew in my heart that I had never truly been their son. I was now and forever more Leigha Michelle Stone. Daughter of Robert Michael and Elizabeth Gabriella Forsythe Stone, parents who loved me very much.

As I stood I realized I was wearing a sundress and while the sun was bright enough that I felt the need to shield my eyes, I didn’t feel the extreme heat that usually accompanied it. My parents stood on either side of me as seven couples wearing clothes from a variety of eras approached. Each thanked me before walking to what I thought was the sun before disappearing

The last two couples told me to tell their daughters they loved them. I promised I would before they walked into the light as well.

"It is our turn to leave." My mother said before pulling me into her embrace. "Enjoy life and find love my darling girl."

I nodded as I thought of Bailey. "I have already found love." I said with tears streaming from my eyes.

"I know." She said with a smile. "And I couldn’t be more thrilled."

Daddy pulled me into his large chest and kissed the top of my head. "We just want you to be happy after everything you’ve been through. Get a good education." He held me out far enough for me to look at him without him letting go of me. "Never stay in a job you hate. Never make time for a friend who doesn’t have time for you. And most importantly, now that you’ve found the love of your life. Hold on to her and never let her go; no matter what anyone else says."

I blushed at his words. "So you’re ok with me loving another girl?"

He smiled as he released me and my mother joined his side. "Of course baby girl. Bailey is strong willed and will take care of you better than any man could."

"I love you both!" I cried and rushed to feel their embrace one last time.

They swallowed me into their arms and each kissed my cheek. "We love you too but it’s our time to go. We will see you soon."

A Tall woman with jet black hair emerged from the light the others had disappeared into. She was wearing an elegant white gown. And her posture was very regal. "We want to return to the home I grew up in." My mother said when she got close. "That is our idea of Heaven." The woman nodded as my parents faded from my sight while waving and blowing kisses at me.

I closed my eyes for a moment and when they reopened Miss Lena was standing beside me. She led us to an ornate bench before gesturing for me to have a seat before joining my side. "I know you want some answers so I'll do the best I can."

"Your Granny loves you something fierce." Miss Lena said with a kind smile. "But you know how she be. She'd always been told how that only the women of her husband’s blood received a curse. She was not entirely convinced of this even after seeing it happen to her own daughter. But she carried enough fear of the possibility that she wanted to make sure it never happened to you. I told her I could make you male but that for it to take hold you would have to live somewhere other than the house you'd grown up in."

She sighed. "I convinced Mister Garrett to possess you in order to save his daughter's namesake. Possessions of a female by a man ain't never done well long term as a woman’s heart is among the strongest and a heart is dang near impossible to change. I knew that if you stayed with the Forsythe’s, it would not have taken long for everything to fall apart. It was far easier to change one set of grandparent’s minds than to change every relative you had here."

"So Grammy did not push me away because she blamed me for what happed?" I asked as I looked at the woman who I previously thought of as just a loving cook.

Miss Lena smiled. "Heavens no child. She never held an ounce of blame in her heart. I might have given a hint of anger in your other grandmother so she could keep you away for your own protection. Sam and Harriet, they be the ones who helped fixed those grandparents memory. They wanted to help since they felt guilty for keeping Clarence's secret. They also blamed themselves for Miss Gabriella and Mister Garrett's death."

She then began laughing and it was an amazing sound. "For what good it did. Your parents reached to your heart and asked for help. Once they did that, there weren't nothing I could do to keep you away."

I felt much better about my mother’s family but my thoughts went back to Tennessee. "What will happen when I go home? How will everyone treat me?"

The beautiful woman’s smile became wider. "It will be as if you were always a girl. As I said, nobody ain't never done well with the transformations such as yours so you did not lead a masculine life. It has been easy to change it so that everyone sees you as should have always been." She put a finger to my lips to stop my next question. "Bailey will retain her memories of everything. It was never your body that attracted that boy to you. It has always been your kind heart and gentle spirit."

"She's not a boy." I said defensively. I knew how much being confused for one bothered the woman I loved.

"Oh but he will be. Mark my words." Miss Lena rose from her seat beside me. "It's 'bout time for you to get back. The changes are complete."

Before I could ask another question, my eyes opened to Bailey holding my hand while sitting on the edge of the bed I’d called mine for the last few days. "Welcome back my sexy little lady."

"Thanks." I replied as my lips smacked from extreme thirst. "How long have I been out?"

She handed me a glass of ice water as she answered. "About a day but my phone says it’s only been an hour and a half. What’s going on Leigha? I know you’re a girl but I also remember you as a guy." I could tell she was not far from totally freaking out.

I pulled the covers back to see I had average side breasts and wider hips, I stood to look in the mirror and saw I looked pretty much the same except maybe my lips were a little fuller and my hair was slightly longer. I lifted my top to get a better view of my chest. Although they were encased in a padded bra, I knew from memory that I was a 32B. My hand then ran along the outside of my jeans to my crotch which was flat and very sensitive, even through clothes.

I saw Bailey’s worried face in the mirror. I sat in her lap and told her everything that happened after Grammy pulled me to the house. My girlfriend took in everything I said without making an expression to let me know if she believed me or not. After I finished she sighed. "That’s too bad. I’d love to have Miss Lena make me man."

I laughed and wrapped my arms around her neck. "You are more than man enough for me."

Half an hour later, Bailey and I were on the front porch saying our goodbyes. Grammy hugged me tight. "I wish I hadn’t spent so much of your visit making sure you were doing the right thing and saying the right thing. Next time, I want to spend it getting to know you."

"Me, too. I’m glad you shared your history with us last night. I feel like I know you better already." I hugged her again and took a sniff of her perfume. She smelled like the magnolia blossoms that had been hanging on the columns last night. "Thank you for protecting me." I whispered in her ear so no one else could hear.

"I’ll always do anything to keep you safe." She whispered back.

Grandpa walked over and hugged me, picking me up slightly off the ground. "I’m not going to lose you again, you hear me?"

I laughed. "No sir. I’m coming for a visit again real soon. I want to see Gabriella and Garrett buried."

"I think we’re going to have something special for that, so it would be good for you to be here. I know she caused us all a lot of pain, but she was in pain, too. I think we have to grant her the peace she wants, and a proper funeral is just the thing."

I hugged him again. He put into words exactly how I felt. "I love you, Grandpa." Grammy moved over beside us. "And you, too, Grammy. I am so glad I came for a visit."

As Bailey and I walked hand in hand back to the car, I saw Daddy pushing Momma in the swing. I didn’t want all the ghosts to disappear from the plantation, just Gabriella’s. As soon as she was buried, I was sure that would happen. Even though I knew my parents didn’t see us, I was happy to see them. Much to my surprise, they looked directly at us. Both smiled as Daddy blew me a kiss and Momma pointed her index finger at her eye, then her heart before pointing directly at me. A huge smile formed on my face as I placed my own hand over my heart and mouthed "I love you too."

Chapter 29

About two months after the first trip to Georgia, Bailey and I, along with my Granny and Papa, headed down to Magnolia Manor again. They were burying Garrett and Gabriella on Saturday, and we all wanted to be there. It was Granny and Papa’s first time to visit since my momma and daddy died.

Since the trip, I talked to my other grandparents weekly. Granny and Papa did not seem to mind at all. In fact, they were glad I had found the family and that we had solved the mystery. They were also happy to be seeing Grammy and Grandpa again. Before the curse, they considered them family.

Any worry I held about returning home was for naught. I found that everyone treated me pretty much the same as always. The only major difference was that I was now best friends with David’s girlfriend Heather instead of him and I found Heather to be a much better friend than David ever was.

Oh, I did dress better now and took much more care in my appearance. I also took far more pride in my long red hair, treating it like the family heirloom it was. The only time I wore ponytails now was when I knew I would be spending most of the day outside. My wardrobe still mainly consisted of jeans and tee shirts but I recently started expanding to prettier tops and a little makeup on occasion. I even owned a few sundresses now. My more feminine tendencies were reserved for when I knew I was going to see my wonderful girlfriend. Bailey loved that aspect of the new me.

During our calls, my grandparents filled me on in everything that was happening around Bowman and the Gabriella and Garrett mystery. Business had picked up in the bed and breakfast, especially when someone had let it slip that the house was haunted by Gabriella’s ghost. One newspaper had even carried the story that she caused all the murder/suicides that happened over the years. No one was confessing to making the slip, and I figured we’d never know. Grammy didn’t seem to mind. She once told me, "I’m glad business is booming. We even have some ghost hunters who want to come and see about it all for themselves."

I had a feeling they might not find a lot after we had Gabriella and Garrett’s funeral. Laying them to rest would stop the curse from happening ever again. I knew it in my heart to be true. I guess I should have hated Gabriella for what she had done, but I didn’t. I don’t think I ever would. Yes, she had deprived me of my parents, but for some reason, I don’t think she had this in mind when she cursed the family. She also seemed genuinely sorry for what she had done.

Bailey stopped at the same gas station as before, and the same man filled up our tank. "You must be back in town for that funeral. Hear it’s gonna be a huge event."

I shrugged my shoulders. "Guess there’s no telling who might show up."

I meant it when I said it, too. I figured all the ghosts in the house might turn out for this one. When we arrived at the house, Grammy ran out to meet us. She swept me into a hug, and as soon as Granny was out of the car, she hugged her, too. "Oh Lenora, I’m so glad you’re here. We have missed you so much."

Granny wiped at her eyes. "We’ve missed all of y’all, too. I made a mistake in keeping Leigha away from her family, and I’m so sorry for taking the blame out on you. I feel so much more peace about it now."

They linked arms. "I know. I do, too, so much peace about everything." She looked over her shoulder at me and smiled. "This has literally changed my life."

I knew she was talking about opening up about her past. I was so glad she no longer worried about what the public thought about her or the family. I was also glad that we didn’t really have to hide the fact that all of this had been caused by a ghost, although I wasn’t going to fully publicize it either. It was better to let the public believe what they wanted without us endorsing it one way or the other. A little mystery added to the story anyway.

They put me in the same room as before. Granny and Papa were in a room down the hall from me, and Bailey was in her same cabin. We had not had sex yet, but I planned to surprise her that night. I’m not sure why it felt right, but it did. Maybe the peace about the situation with my parents was giving me a sense of peace with everything.

At supper time, I was surprised to see Kate and Suzanne there. They sat with us, and Kate leaned over to me. "You didn’t think we’d miss this, did you?"

"I wasn’t sure. I hoped to see y’all, of course, but I was afraid you might not want to come."

Suzanne smiled. "At first, I hated Gabriella and what she'd done, and then I decided that maybe it was something she had no control over. I’ve forgiven her for it and am ready to see her laid to rest."

Miss Lena brought the food out to everyone herself this evening and came over to me. I stood up, and she folded me into her soft body. I hugged her back fiercely. "Just knew you had it in you to do it. It was you that figured it out all out, right?"

My confusion must have showed because she gave me a wink that told me to go with it for everyone else's benefit.

I smiled. "I had help, Miss Lena."

"I know it, but you was the one who did it. This family gonna be happy now. No more heartaches and no more curses, all because of you. Knew you were special the minute Miss Lizzie brought you home from the hospital." She held me a little tighter. "It does this old soul good to see you happy and whole."

"I'm real good Miss Lena." I kissed her cheek. "Thank you for everything."

She grinned down at Bailey. "See you got the same boyfriend. You better hold on to that one."

Bailey smiled back at her. "I’m not planning to let her go, Miss Lena. I think I’m the lucky one."

She laughed, and everyone at the table laughed along with her. It was just that infectious. "Don’t I know it, sure enough, but she lucky, too."

I sat back down and reached under the table for Bailey's hand. I gave it a squeeze and smiled at her, hoping I was giving something away in my smile about what I planned to happen that night. I don’t think she got it though. I didn’t want to come out and say it in case I chickened out, but I wanted her to expect something.

Miss Lena’s pot roast was just as good as anything she had fixed, and I had no nerves this time to keep me from enjoying it. I even had seconds. It wasn’t long after dinner was finished that Uncle Kerry and his wife came in, along with Caroline, Jeff and Elizabeth. Caroline rushed over to me. "I’m sorry we missed supper, but traffic was bad in Atlanta. I’m so glad you’re here."

I stood up and hugged her. "Me, too, and I’m glad we’re laying Gabriella to rest tomorrow. I know it’s been worrying you."

She and I also talked weekly since I had gone home. She mentioned how guarded she had been about everything since that night and avoided the plantation. "I haven’t had any migraines, though," she said, "and I hope I don’t have one between now and tomorrow. I think the migraines were Gabriella trying to possess me."

"I think so, too. Momma mentioned her having them in her diary the week before it happened with them."

"I just didn’t think anything about it," she said. "Grammy has migraines and so does my momma. I just thought it was something that ran in both sides of my family, and I had inherited it along with my red hair."

"I think we all just inherited a very unhappy ghost, but after tomorrow, I’m sure she’ll be gone."

Caroline laughed. "I hope you’re right."

We all soon decided to go to bed early. Grandpa told us about some Civil War re-enactors who were coming in full costume and said they’d be there about two hours before the funeral started at 11 a.m. Grammy suggested we all dress up, but everyone vetoed the idea. I was not going to stand in the sun in a corset and hoops even if the days were cooler now in October than they had been at our last visit.

I waited in my bedroom until I was sure everyone was asleep. I debated about whether to buy something sexy to wear that night, but I decided against it. I wasn’t the lingerie type, and Bailey knew it. After I took a quick shower, I threw on a pair of pink short shorts and a tight tank top that I usually slept in. I smoothed my favorite scented lotion all over my body and threw my bathrobe on. If I encountered anyone on the stairs or on my way out the door, I was just going to say I couldn’t sleep and wanted to go sit on the porch awhile.

But I didn’t meet anyone and made my way to the cabin unhindered. This gave me a sign that tonight was really supposed to be the night for it to happen. I took a deep breath and put my fist up to the door to knock but took it down again. I knew I smelled good. I knew Bailey loved me, but I still worried about all the usual things. What if my body was horrible? What if it hurt? I shook those thoughts out of my head. Bailey loved me, and she would do everything she could to make it good for me, too. This time, when I reached up to knock, I actually did it.

It took her a few minutes to answer the door, and when she saw me standing there, a concerned look flashed across her beautiful face. "Is everything ok up at the house?"

"It’s all good," I said. "I came to see you."

She smiled. "It must be something important if you came this late."

I stretched to my tiptoes and kissed her passionately. "It is. I want tonight to be the night."

"You mean…" She raised her eyebrows. "You want to make love with me tonight?"

I nodded. "More than anything."

She pulled me into her arms. "Are you sure about this? I mean, really sure? I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to do."

I nodded. "I wouldn’t have come down here if I wasn’t sure."

She kissed me, and I dropped the robe to the floor. She ran her hands over my shoulders and down my back. In a flash, her shirt was off and all she wore was a pair of boxer shorts. When I ran my nails across her stomach, she took a deep breath and pulled me over to the bed.

Soon, I wasn’t thinking of anything else but making love to her. Her hands on my body felt better than anything I had ever experienced, but three fingers did hurt to be honest. She didn’t move her fingers for a few seconds to give me time to adjust, and after a little bit, it started to feel better. After a while I returned the favor. Our tongues explored each other for an exquisitely long time. We kissed again, and soon, we were laying in each other’s arms, smiles on both of our faces.

I propped myself up on her chest with my elbow and kissed her, letting my hair tickle her stomach and barely noticeable breasts. "I don’t know why I waited so long for this."

"I’m glad we waited. I think it made it more special." She reached up and swept the strands of hair hanging in front of my face. "I love you, Leigha."

"I love you, too, Bailey." I snuggled down into her arms and wanted nothing more than to stay there with her all night, but I knew I had to get back up to the house before anyone noticed I was gone. I didn’t want to embarrass anyone by being discovered in the morning in her bed, having fallen asleep there. We kissed and touched a bit more, and I left her there, all tousled and sexy. I always wondered if I would regret losing my virginity, but I didn’t really think I had lost anything. I had given it freely to the woman I loved.

***

I woke the next morning and stretched. Then, I remembered what happened the night before and felt a blush rise to my cheeks. What if everyone knew what we had done? What if my face screamed, "I had sex with my girlfriend for the first time"? I decided not to worry about it, got up, showered and dressed for the funeral in a black short sleeve blouse and black pencil skirt. I had purchased it just for the funeral as I no longer wanted to wear such dark, dreary colors.

I met Bailey at the bottom of the stairs and smiled at her. She was wearing dress slacks and a matching long sleeve black button up shirt with the sleeves rolled up past her elbows. She mouthed, "I love you," and I said it back to her. Everyone gathered at the breakfast table and soon some of the Civil War re-enactors came inside. Grammy and Grandpa invited them to join us. Some did while others went back outside to wait for the service to start.

As soon as breakfast was over, we all went outside. A hearse from the local funeral home sat at the edge of the family cemetery, which featured a lone weeping willow on the outskirts of it. Gabriella and Garrett were to be buried in the same coffin in a grave beside their daughter.

By the time the preacher started the service, quite a crowd had gathered around the fence. Only family members and their special guests were allowed inside. As the coffin was brought out of the hearse, a bugler started playing a melancholy tune, but I wasn’t sad. I only wished that Clarence hadn’t ruined the happiness of all his family members so many years before so there would be no need for this and my parents would still be here. Bailey held one of my hands, and Grammy held my other.

As the casket was lowered into the ground, Grandpa said, "Let these two find peace after being killed so brutally and buried like animals by their loved one."

The preacher started to pray, and I bowed my head. As soon as I did, I heard a voice beside my ear. "Thank you, Leigha, for helping me find the peace I needed." Her voice started to fade away. "Thank you for forgiving me. Thank you…thank you…thank you."

Another voice began to speak. "Thank you for helping my wife." I knew the voice belonged to Garrett. "It was a pleasure watching you grow up."

"Thank you for protecting me." I whispered in return.

I looked up and saw two dragonflies flitting around the grave. I knew Gabriella and Garrett were finally at peace, and our family would never have to worry about the curse again. It was finally broken.

Epilogue

"Are you going to dance with me Daddy?" Gabby asked as I curled her hair into ringlets like I wore when I was her age.

"Of course." My husband Bailey replied and he bent down to kiss her adorable cheek. "Wild horses couldn’t keep me from dancing with one of the two most beautiful girls at the ball."

Soon after moving away to college Bailey let me know of his intention to transition to male. The only thing that upset me about the conversation was how nervous he was and considered, even for a second, that I would not support him fully. I let him know as much as I also told him that my love was unconditional. He laughed with relief when I told him that he was stuck with me.

At my first opportunity I traveled to Magnolia Manor and asked Miss Lena if she could help the man I loved.

"I'll do what I can." She told me with a frown. "I might can help wit the body but ain't nothing I can do about anyone's mind. That's gonna be a battle ya'll gonna have to fight together."

"I'll always fight for the man I love." I replied fiercely.

Miss Lena laughed heartily. "Don't I know it! You's always been a good woman Miss Leigha. You make me proud every day."

I didn't mention my conversation with Bailey until he rushed into my room the next morning. He was thrilled when he woke up the next morning as a complete and functioning male. We wasted no time in trying out his new equipment.

Miss Lena had been gone going on ten years. The day of her funeral was one of the hardest I'd ever endured. I didn't miss her though because anytime I wanted to see her, I simply had to go to the kitchen, grab a cookie and sit at the table. She would always appear next to me.

We moved to the house my parents left me as soon as we both graduated. Our hometown did not take well to our relationship and even less when Bailey announced his intention to live as a man. My husband took over as caretaker of my grandparent’s estate since Grandpa had grown too old to properly fulfill the role and neither of his sons wanted the responsibility.

I was now a social worker like my mother. Everything I went through as a child made me far more perceptive and understanding with troubled children than a lot of my colleagues. It was a very rewarding career.

Ten years into our relationship, we’d decided to have a child of our own. It was the best decision we ever made. Our daughter Gabriella helped our unbreakable bond become even stronger. She was my mini-me and the light of her daddy’s eye.

"Why don’t you go show Grammy how pretty you look." I said after finishing the last curl.

Gabby twirled in her dark green dress, the same one I wore at her age. "I feel so pretty Mommy."

I reached for her before kissing the top of her head. "You’re gorgeous baby girl."

She ran to the door. "I’m gonna go show Grammy and Grandpa."

My husband laughed as we heard our daughter run down the hall. "Your grandmother is going to be beside herself when she sees how cute she is."

My grandparents did not have many balls left to attend as Father Time had caught up with them. Both were still spry for their age but they were in their eighties. I’d already had to bury my grandparents in Tennessee and did not look forward to doing the same for them.

I turned to kiss my husband deeply while we had a moment of privacy. "Will you help me get dressed?"

"I’d rather help you get undressed." He replied as his hands drifted to my butt as they always did when we stood like this.

"Save it for later Fiend." I said with a giggle as I began the process of dressing in my antebellum gown. He looked dapper as always in his black suit. It amazed me that I found him even more desirable with each passing day.

The was a light knock on the door. "I hate to bother you Miss Leigha but your Grammy said to fetch you. She said the announcements will start in ten minutes and that she would take Miss Gabby down with her and your grandpa."

"Thank you Betsy." I said through the door. "You can let her know I’ll be down shortly."

Bailey laughed. "How you managed to talk her into turning over the planning of the Magnolia Ball to you I’ll never know."

I laughed as I put my earrings in before holding my necklace to my neck and turning my back to him so he could fasten it. "It hasn’t been easy but she just can’t take care of everything anymore."

He nodded as he pulled my hair to the side and kissed my neck. His fingers caressed my skin, sending goosebumps up my arm before he fastened the clasp. "We better get going before she sends someone else after us."

I nodded and placed my arm in his. "Lead the way kind sir."

Carolyn and Jeff were waiting at the bottom of the stairs. They were still the picture of happiness after all these years as they approached. "Grammy was about to send me next if you waited another five minutes."

I laughed and hugged her. "You know how she gets. Are your parents here yet?"

She nodded as the four of us made our way to the ballroom. "They are with Kate and her husband. Uncle Casey is with Grammy and Papa."

Suzanne’s family waved as we walked in. She passed the same summer as my Granny but her family never missed a Magnolia Ball. At her funeral her family told me how much our friendship meant to Suzanne. They told me how meeting me had freed something within her and the years after we met we some of her happiest.

After a few lively dances, Bailey and I retreated to the deck overlooking the back yard. Soon, our daughter was in her father’s arms. "Look!" She said as she pointed toward the swing. "There’s Grandma and PawPaw."

I looked down to see my parents waving to their granddaughter and blowing kisses to her. My little girl was throwing them back as hard as she could. It was such a cute sight. I know not many children would react so casually to seeing a couple of ghosts but Gabriella had seen them since we brought her home from the hospital and it was her normal.

The ball was a smashing success and after putting a very tired but extremely happy Gabriella to bed, my husband and I snuck off to the cabin where we first made love. It was our own little tradition.

As we approached the swing where my parents laughed together I slowed, taking a moment to bask in their version of heaven. They turned to me before mom approached, wrapping me in her arms. I didn’t feel the cold normally associated with spirits. Instead I felt the warmth of the love she had for me. My parents could not speak but they didn’t have to. I could tell from a touch what they had on their mind. Mom was letting me know how proud she was of me.

Daddy put his hand on Bailey’s shoulder in a manly gesture. My husband nodded. "No need to thank me for loving her. Leigha is my wife as well as my life."

My parents joined hands and skipped into the woods like lovestruck teens. After they disappeared, my husband lifted me in his arms. "Did you know life could be this good?"

I nodded before kissing him deeply. "I’ve known since the first time you took me in your arms."