Chapter 24 #2
But then standing next to the younger Netty, smiling broadly, clinging to Chase’s arm, was Merilee. And another man had joined the group—Carter Dean. The woman who held his arm looked familiar. She could’ve been Mary Alice’s sister.
This album, these photos, had to be either an elaborate hoax or the most dedicated historical reenactments I’d ever seen.
At least, that’s what my brain kept insisting as I continued looking through the album, the photos taken through the decades—30s, 40s, 50s…
Sometimes the man featured in so many of the photos was listed with a different name, but his face was always the same.
The man who resembled Whit was sometimes present, sometimes not.
In one photo from 1917 that I found tucked between pages, out of chronological order, he wore a US Army uniform.
In another from 1942, he was again in uniform, but his face was still young and handsome, untouched by time.
I went back through the album several times, taking in each photo, studying it, trying to force the math of the years depicted to make sense.
Henry grew bored at one point, so he and Dottie disappeared upstairs to Dottie’s apartment, returning with supper that I couldn’t eat, my stomach in too much turmoil.
Later, they returned with freshly baked cookies, which Henry insisted I try.
“Mama,” Henry said, yawning, “I’m tired. When are we going home? Can I take Daddy some cookies?”
I nodded, absently. “Sure, baby.” Then I raised my eyes to Dottie, encountering her sympathetic expression. “How can this be possible…?”
She gently closed the photo album. “That’s probably not a question for me, honey.”
The room began to spin in concert with the whirlwind of thoughts in my head, so I closed my eyes and took several deep breaths, managing to avoid tossing my actual cookies.
When I opened them again, Dottie was watching me closely as if trying to determine if she needed to get more tea or grab a mop and bucket.
“May I borrow this album?” I asked, my tone flat, controlled as I tried to keep it together.
“Of course, honey,” she said. “Are you okay to drive home? Would you like me to take you?”
I shook my head and hefted the album onto one hip. “No. Thank you,” I said in a daze. “I’ll manage. Henry, baby, come on.”
I vaguely remember the short drive home. It didn’t give me much time to consider possible explanations, to figure out what questions I even needed to ask, but it wouldn’t have done any good to continue driving around. That only prolonged the inevitable.
As Henry and I made our way toward the elevator in Dawes House, I registered that some of the others had come out to the foyer, were greeting me, but I didn’t respond.
None of them were who I needed to see, who I needed to hold me and assure me that the album was just an odd prank that wasn’t funny.
Whit was sitting on the couch when Henry and I entered, a glass of dark liquid in his hand, a bottle of Junior’s elderberry wine sitting on the end table beside him. He didn’t turn to look at us, but I could see from his profile that the proud, confident man I loved looked weary, defeated.
“Henry, baby,” I said softly, “why don’t you go play in your room for a while?”
He yawned but shrugged. “Yes, ma’am.”
As soon as Henry was in his room, I circled around to face Whit then set the album on the coffee table and flipped it open to the first photo.
He stared at it for a moment then let out a short, bitter laugh. “Gotta hand it to Dottie,” he said with mock praise, raising his wine glass in salute. “She played us all.”
“Whit?” I wasn’t sure what to do or say, but all my questions apparently came through in that one word.
He took another swig of his wine and heaved a sigh.
“I had hoped things could be different for me,” he began.
“I tried to avoid my family duty, spare you from all this.” He chuckled again, but this time it was heavy with sorrow.
“Hell, I even eradicated family from several of our homes when they refused to support my leadership and change their ways. But this life it’s…
” he lifted his glass, peering at it thoughtfully. “Intoxicating.”
I placed my palms on my belly where Whit’s child grew in my womb. “What do you mean by ‘eradicated’? Whit, are you drunk?”
He shook his head. “No. Can’t be. I wish I could be. Wish I could drink myself blind, pretend the truth was just a horrible nightmare that I could wake up from to find you there beside me and hold you until the world faded away again.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked, my throat tightening with my growing fear. “Baby, you’re scaring me.”
“No point in sugar-coating it now since Dottie’s interference has ruined my chance to ease you into our world.” He gestured toward the photo album and answered my unasked question. “Yes, Zellie, the people in that album are the same people you know and love. Me included.”
My knees suddenly weak, I sank down onto the other couch. But I couldn’t say a word.
“Some of us have been around for longer than others,” Whit continued with a shrug.
“My father, Pearlie, June… It was a lot easier to hide the truth in the old days, taking only in moderation mostly from those no one would really miss or ones that could be explained away. June survived I don’t know how many witch trials.
Pearlie moved among the royalty of Africa, Europe, England, amassing a fortune.
And my father—the venerable Montgomery Proffitt as you would know him—has been gathering a family for longer than recorded history. ”
I stared at him, hoping what he was saying was just a product of too much wine, no matter how much he denied it. It must’ve shown in my face.
He took another sip, topped it off with more from the bottle, then sighed.
“It’s hard to wrap your head around, I know.
Even those who have directly witnessed the truth find it impossible to believe.
All the better for us, really. We had a bit of a scare in the 1600s when my father’s cousin Elizabeth’s insatiable appetite nearly exposed us all. All those poor young women…”
“Elizabeth?” I repeated. “Eliz— Báthory?”
He nodded. “I wasn’t there, of course,” he said.
“I wasn’t born until the 1700s. I was raised in this house—did you know that?
Well, not this house. My father built the original.
He was going by Thomas Montgomery then. But people start to notice our idiosyncrasies after a while, so we moved during the British occupation of Savannah.
That seemed like a good time to disappear.
But he loved the house, and he hates giving up what’s his.
That’s why he married Susanna Dawes when he returned under a different name, to reclaim what was his. ”
“As Josef Proffitt,” I murmured.
Whit nodded. “He changed his name periodically as we moved among the network of properties the family had created. Unfortunately, those moves became more frequent as time wore on and communication, the media, improved.”
I pulled my hands down my face and laughed in a short burst that probably gave away how close I was to not being able to hold myself together.
Whit leaned forward to reach for me, but I shot to my feet, avoiding his touch.
Needing to loosen the knot pulling tighter in my stomach, I paced the room, attempting to process everything.
He was laying it out so logically, so matter-of-factly as if what he was telling me was just as ordinary as any other family’s history. But some things still didn’t fit.
I halted directly in front of him, keeping the coffee table between us. “Your father was an old man when I knew him, Whit. Explain that.”
He’d been sitting with his head on his clasped hands like I’d found him the previous night in Henry’s room. When he lifted his head at my question, the pain I saw there nearly broke me. He leaned back against the couch cushions, his hands now resting limp on his thighs.
And I realized he was already broken. It took every ounce of my willpower to keep my feet planted where they were and not go to him.
“We all have a choice,” he explained. “Leave and become nomads, never planting roots, never experiencing the security and safety of the family, changing our identity at more frequent intervals. Or leapfrog with the others, growing old until it was time to be renewed. My father liked to mix it up to keep things interesting.”
“Renewed?” I repeated softly, still refusing to connect the dots he was laying out for me.
“We need blood to survive and stay young,” he said.
“But if we choose to grow old, consuming enough blood erases decades. My father discovered quite by accident that the blood of pregnant women or recently pregnant women was far more potent than the blood of others. The renewal was so much quicker, so much more invigorating with them as the source.”
“My God.” I took an involuntary step back, my hand covering my mouth to keep the rising bile from escaping.
“Originally, my father had only resorted to this in the most extreme cases,” Whit continued as if that somehow excused my former benefactor’s actions.
“Horrific injury, starvation, when massive amounts of blood were needed. But with the renewals, he’d found a whole new way to preserve his legacy and his stranglehold on the family.
Not only would he be sowing his seed like he always had, but he’d also be ensuring the survival of his existing family. ”
I wrapped my arms around myself, the horror of everything he’d told me fully sinking in. “What are you?” I croaked, finally working up the courage to ask the question that burned on my tongue. “Witches? Vampires? Demons?”