Chapter 32
T he clock above the fireplace mantel read half-past five in the afternoon. Nick and Amiya had arrived there that morning around nine o’clock, meaning they had spent about eight hours there.
To Nick, it felt like eight days.
He didn’t have access to a sunset calendar, but in mid-April, he believed that dusk would settle around eight that evening. Nightfall would arrive in less than three hours.
Then the Overseer rises . . .
The two of them sat at the small kitchen table.
Grandpa Lee lit a candle and placed it in the center, giving the shadowed chamber the atmosphere of a midnight séance.
He had brewed a pot of coffee on the wood-burning stove and set a chunk of hard bread and a slab of cured pork on a wooden platter at the table’s edge.
Nick poured himself a steaming mug of coffee and tore into the meat and bread between sips.
“They call him the Overseer.” Grandpa Lee sat across from him, his face in alternating layers of shadow and light. “He’s not like any of the others. He was there in the beginning.”
“You mean when Westbrook, the plantation, was founded,” Nick said.
Grandpa Lee grunted. “Eighteen twenty-three.”
“I see.” Nick didn’t know what else to say.
“I know you’re a man of science, son.” Grandpa Lee sipped a bit of coffee and puckered his lips. “You’re thinking, how could a man who was living in the early 1800s still be walking this earth? I appreciate science, too, but Westbrook has nothing to do with such things.”
“I saw what happened when someone with the mark tries to cross the bridge,” Nick said. “I saw with my own eyes how it catches fire. I can’t explain it scientifically.”
“You’re going to have to suspend your scientific inclinations a lot more to understand what Westbrook is all about. The Overseer is the curse. He was a man at one time—a Black man.”
“A Black man was in charge of supervising other Black slaves?” Nick had set down his coffee mug. He grimaced. “I’ve read history books about that happening, sometimes.”
“The position gave him power, respect. It earned him special disposition from the master of the plantation, Robert Westbrook. A Black man eager and willing to punish, push, and chase down his own people and feed them back into the plantation’s profit engine. He was a special breed indeed.”
“What was his name?” Nick asked. “No one’s been able to tell me his name.”
“I can’t tell you his name,” Grandpa Lee said. “You’ll have to find that out on your own. I believe he’s kept that a secret for a reason. An old belief is that if you know the name of a thing, that gives you power to control it.”
“He was a man, at one time,” Nick said. “What happened?”
“A great fire, born of a slave insurrection.” Reflections of candle flame danced in Grandpa Lee’s lenses.
“The Overseer was an uncommonly cruel man, even by the standards back then.
From the stories I pieced together from my father, the Overseer had exacted an unusually cruel punishment on a respected family that had worked the plantation for years, for some trivial act of disobedience.
It tipped the scales too far this time, and the slaves decided to revolt.
“They set the estate and most of the buildings on fire. If you’ve seen any of them, and I believe you have, you would recognize the signs of a conflagration?—”
Nick nodded, thinking of the fire-ravaged barn and the other structures he’d seen.
“—so you can use your imagination to visualize the destruction that had torn across Westbrook at the time. Robert Westbrook and his family died in the blaze. Many others died, including some innocent. The Overseer died.”
Nick frowned. “Wait, you said he was still alive?”
“I didn’t say he stayed dead.”
Nick bit into a thick slice of bread, chewed vigorously. He was surprised by his appetite; perhaps raw fear was like a stimulant, increasing his hunger.
“So he came back,” Nick said, between bites. “Any idea how?”
“Only a theory.” Grandpa took a quick sip of coffee.
“I think he did so much evil in his time, shed so much innocent blood on that fertile ground, that the land itself is tainted, in a spiritual sense. I think it attracted a certain class of powerful spiritual beings—entities, you may call ’em—like flies drawn to a rotting carcass.
I think the Overseer came under their influence. ”
“Demons,” Nick said, and felt a shiver.
“That’s what some people call them.” Grandpa Lee chewed on a small piece of bread, swallowed.
“It’s why his mark has power. It comes from the land, from the spirits that have taken residence there.
The land calls to people passing by. And the Overseer takes them, and the land feeds off their misery and suffering. ”
“You said I’d need to kill him, but you didn’t say how,” Nick said.
Grunting, Grandpa Lee pushed away from the table. He shuffled across the room, to his bookcase, withdrew a slim volume from the shelf, and returned to the table, placing the book in front of Nick.
Nick wiped his hands on his jeans and picked it up.
“Drawings,” Nick said, turning pages. Each page held a skillfully rendered sketch of a different item, building, or place: a barn—which Nick recognized as the very barn in which he’d been imprisoned—and rooms inside the mansion, drawn with the flair of an architect.
“I’ve dreamed of those places, over the years,” Grandpa Lee said. “I’d draw what I could remember from my dreams. I’ve never set foot inside the house, son.” He tapped his head with his index finger. “It all came from up here.”
At the back of the book, Nick found a map of the entire property.
“You’ve got an entire map in here,” Nick said. “From what I’ve seen, it looks accurate, too.”
“Have you ever dreamed of Westbrook?” Grandpa Lee asked. “Have you ever dreamed of him?”
Nick paused. “Today, I did, when I was locked up in the barn. I dreamed he was going to put the mark on me.”
“Thirty-five years ago, after my daddy passed, I started dreaming of Westbrook and I couldn’t get it out of my head.” Grandpa Lee settled back into his chair. “I figured out that’s how the land calls us home. It’s in our blood, yours and mine. It’s the burden we bear.”
“The burden we bear for what ? What did our ancestors do, exactly, that has put this weight on us? I don’t understand our role in any of this.”
But Grandpa Lee was gazing out the window, eyes clouded with worry. “It’s time for you to get going, son. We could talk about this all night, but it’s not going to make sense until you see it for yourself.”
“Grandpa . . .” Nick shook his head, frustrated. “I don’t know how to stop this guy. If I can’t do that, I can’t help those people get away. I can’t get back my girlfriend. I need answers .”
But his grandfather was beckoning him to the door.
“You can take my book, the shotgun, and a pocketful of shells,” Grandpa Lee said. “Some water, too. That’s all I can give you. You need to hurry up and get out of here.”