Chapter 6
Chapter six
“Idon’t want to go,” Henry complained as we made our way across the foyer. “Can’t I stay here and play with Addie?”
“No, baby,” I told him. “I haven’t talked to Ms. June. I’m not going to just show up at her door and ask her if you can stay and play. That’s rude.”
“Well, good morning, y’all.”
I started, having not expected anyone to be in the foyer that early in the morning. My head snapped toward the soft, purring voice.
The woman at the front desk offered us a friendly smile.
“I’m sorry, darlin’,” she said, standing and coming around the desk to greet us properly.
“Didn’t mean to startle you. I’m Iris. And you must be Zellie and Henry.
I was told you moved in while I was away.
I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to meet you all last night at supper.
I live over in one of the carriage house apartments if you ever need anything.
I tend to keep to myself as I prefer my private business to stay private. But no need to be a stranger.”
Iris was statuesque, blond, beautiful, and oozing sex appeal—not at all the older woman I was expecting based on what I’d heard about her.
She seemed overdressed for her position at Dawes House in what had to be an expensive suit, and her five-inch stilettos added to her already impressive height.
I’ll admit, I stared at her, dumbfounded, for what was a very awkward, uncomfortable ten seconds before I could manage a pathetic response. “You’re Iris?”
She laughed—a very pretty, musical laugh—and gestured toward her nameplate on the desk. “Last time I checked.”
Embarrassment burned my cheeks. “I’m sorry,” I managed. “You’re just not…”
“What you expected?” she finished with a milder echo of her lovely laugh. “I get that a lot. Now,” she said, shifting her focus to Henry, “where are you off to this morning? You are looking very sharp, darlin’.”
Henry grinned, enjoying the praise. “We have to go to the bookstore. Mama has a job interview.”
“You don’t say,” Iris drawled, turning her smile on me, clearly expecting for me to share more.
“Whit has a family friend who’s looking for someone to work at her store—Ever After Coffee and Books,” I explained.
Iris pressed her palms together with a delighted gasp. “Oh, you’ll love it. Dottie is a doll! She recently lost her manager—just up and quit with no notice. She’s going to be so excited to meet you!”
“Thanks. I hope so.” I gave Henry’s hand a little tug. “C’mon, baby. We have to get going. I’ll be late.”
Iris regarded Henry like she was sizing him up. “You don’t want to go to a boring job interview with your mama, do you? Listen to grown-ups talk about books and coffee and inventories?”
“No, ma’am,” Henry said, shaking his head.
Iris looked at me with a twinkle in her blue eyes. “I don’t think Addie and Ms. June are back from their errands. Would you like to stay with me while your mama is away?”
Henry’s face brightened. “Yes, ma’am!”
“Oh, that’s so kind of you, Iris,” I began. “But—”
She waved away my words with a dismissive gesture. “My pleasure!”
I offered her a brief, tight smile. “I appreciate it, truly. But I can’t pay you, Ms. Iris.”
“Don’t you worry about that.” She reached out her hand to Henry, who happily accepted it and skipped around the end of the desk.
“He can work it off by keeping me company. We don’t get many visitors who need my assistance, as you can imagine.
And when Ms. June and Addie get back, we can go for a visit.
I guarantee Ms. June won’t mind this little man coming to play for a while. ”
I hesitated, still uncertain. I didn’t know this woman at all, had never met her. Hell, she might not have even been who she said she was. I was just opening my mouth to politely decline when the front door opened, spilling sunlight into the foyer.
“Mornin’, y’all!” Chase stepped in carrying several cans of paint and sporting his usual grin. “You’re looking particularly lovely, Ms. Iris.”
“Flatterer,” Iris teased.
Chase turned his attention to me. “Where y’all off to this morning?”
Iris answered before I could get a word out, “Zellie is going to visit Dottie Shay about a job, and Henry is going to stay with me for a bit until Ms. June and Addie get back.”
“Well, that sounds like a good plan to me,” Chase said, giving Henry a wink, then added, “Don’t you worry, Zellie—Iris will take good care of your boy. You’d best get going. Probably easiest to walk to the store. Just cut right through the cemetery and you’ll be there in no time!”
Still torn at the prospect of leaving Henry but needing to leave so I wasn’t late, I hesitated. “Are you sure, Ms. Iris? I don’t want to impose.”
“Not at all, darlin’,” she assured me. “You go on now. Henry and I will be just fine. We’re all family here, honey. We take care of our own.”
Henry beamed and waved, perfectly content with me leaving him with Iris. “Bye, Mama!”
I gave him one last hug and kiss and ordered him to mind his manners then hurried out the door before I could change my mind.
I walked a few blocks, turning down a beautiful tree-lined street that offered a little shade from the bright morning sunshine.
The humidity was already starting to make the air thick and sticky, but a light breeze skimmed over my skin, offering just enough relief to pretend it wasn’t going to be miserable by noon.
I cut through Chippewa Square, one of Savannah’s smaller green spaces, and paused to take in the loveliness before continuing a few more blocks toward Colonial Park Cemetery.
I stopped at the entrance.
Of course, the shortcut would be through a cemetery…
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, steeling myself for what was to come, and tried to surround myself with a protective bubble in my mind, doing what I could to keep anyone from getting my attention, latching on.
Cemeteries were never my favorite places. Too many spirits reaching out, trying to get my attention. And this one was the oldest in Savannah, dating back to the 1700s—a long time for the dead to grow restless, more frustrated, more insistent.
As I stepped through the gates, the weight of the place settled over me. Desperation and sorrow clung to the air, particularly that of the thousands lost to yellow fever epidemics, buried in mass graves with no records and no tombstones to remind anyone they lived and died here.
But even those whose lives were memorialized with headstones or buried in one of the above-ground red brick tombs had no one left to visit them, generations gone since the last of the burials here.
Now, their only visitors were tourists with cameras, hoping to maybe catch a glimpse of a restless soul.
As I passed a small group of tourists who’d gotten an early start, I suddenly sensed someone watching me.
I glanced around but saw only a handful of other people in the cemetery, none of whom were remotely interested in me and all very much alive.
Still, dread crept along the back of my neck, urging me to get going.
I quickened my pace, making a mental note to go the long way on my return, cemetery shortcuts be damned.
A flicker of movement drew my attention.
Standing behind one of the tombstones was the woman from the hallway of Dawes House—her long, black hair bedraggled and matted, her nightgown soaked and stiff with blood.
Her eyes locked onto mine, the darkness I saw there drawing me in, surrounding me with a preternatural coldness that chilled me to my core.
Then she pivoted and ran.
“Wait!” I called, chasing after her but not able to keep up as she disappeared around the east wall of the cemetery where dozens of headstones leaned against the brick. Out of breath and confused by the strange encounter, I slowed and scanned the area, trying to determine where she could’ve gone.
When I turned back, one of the names on the headstones caught my eye.
Susanna Dawes Proffitt.
Next to it, a smaller headstone for an infant.
Josiah Proffitt.
I stared in disbelief, stunned by the coincidence. But was it a coincidence, or had she led me here? And, if so, why? What was she trying to tell me by leading me to a set of headstones for members of the Dawes and Proffitt families who had died two centuries before?
My phone buzzed, jolting me. I had ten minutes before my appointment at Ever After. Shaking, I forced myself to turn away from the headstones and hurried out of the cemetery. The moment I stepped through the gates, the oppressive weight lifted.
I collapsed onto a bench and took some time to compose myself, smooth my hair, still my hands. As soon as my pulse had slowed and I could breathe normally, I headed to the bookstore, smiling when I spotted the sign above the doorway. It was exactly as whimsical as the name promised.
A bell chimed as I entered, drawing the attention of the lone patron perusing one of the shelves.
She spared me only a glance before turning back to the rows of fantasy novels.
I lifted my gaze to take in the shop and was transported straight into a fairytale.
Greenery draped the entire place, intertwined with twinkling fairy lights.
Dragons and pixies peeked out from among the foliage.
Gnomes crouched behind the stacks. Even the furniture—bistro tables, oversized armchairs, comfy couches—looked like they’d been salvaged from a storybook.
“Good morning!” a cheerful voice called, accompanied by a rapid clack, clack, clack of heels on the hardwood.