Chapter 30
THIRTY
Lacy sent Anton to call his friend who knew someone who knew someone who was a hacker, which was a long shot but worth trying.
Then, she joined me in the Finches’ family room, where Aunt DeeDee said we could scavenge for supplies for our fake séance.
In a little over an hour we would meet Savilla on the main floor before venturing into the bowels of the estate to the Vampire Room.
Like most families, even the Finches had a bin filled with soft blankets and a closet full of games they may have never played.
“What does someone even take to a séance?” I asked as Lacy, Aunt DeeDee, and I started looking through cupboards.
Aunt DeeDee pulled out her phone and entered my question into a new AI chat she’d downloaded a couple of months ago. She’d named it Alistair, and often referred to the software as if it was less of a search engine and more of a smart boyfriend.
She read from the screen. “Alistair says we need low lighting…”
I spotted a scented candle and a giant decorative one and put them in a box. From the other side of the room Lacy grabbed several votives.
“Next is… incense and/or herbs.”
“Any ideas?” I asked.
“I’ll get some oregano and basil from the kitchen.”
“I don’t think that’s what Alistair means,” Lacy said, sounding uncertain.
“It’s fine.” Aunt DeeDee was unbothered. “We also need an item that belonged to the person we want to contact.”
“We’ll see if Presley can contribute that,” I said.
“Oh my.” Aunt DeeDee continued to read Alistair’s list. “This says we should have a Ouija board or tarot cards.” She looked at both of us. “The Finches wouldn’t have anything like that, would they?”
I glanced at the neat rows of games and spotted playing cards. “What about UNO?”
Lacy lifted an eyebrow as I tossed them in the box.
It took another half hour to find everything else on the list and then some.
Instead of crystals, we decided to take a moment at the beginning of the ordeal to remind everyone that The Rose was—or used to be—full of sparkly rocks.
For an altar, we grabbed the squatty potty that Aunt DeeDee remembered was in her bathroom.
“Here’s a shawl,” Aunt DeeDee said, placing her cozy fleece wraparound on top of the blankets we’d also added to the box. “It wasn’t on the list, but I’ve always imagined that someone leading a séance must be wearing a shawl.”
That sounded accurate for our ragtag attempt at a quasi-spiritual experience.
Lacy patted the stuffed box. “I think we’ve done well for throwing it together so fast.”
“And Savilla is inviting Presley, Joe, Valerie and Will Hurt, and the film crew, so we should have a good-sized crowd.”
“And Doris,” Aunt DeeDee added. “Miss 1962 herself.”
That’s right. Mina’s grandmother would be there as well. I thought of the cranky eighty-something-year-old with renewed affection, and the investigator side in me wondered what insights she might be able to add. “What kind of roles has Doris held at the pageant since she won?”
“Most recently, a judge. She did that for a couple of decades or so,” Aunt DeeDee said.
“Back when I competed in the nineties, she was a liaison, reaching out to the contestants in the weeks running up to the pageant to give advice. Afterward, she would act as a mentor to the winner. That’s how I originally got to know her. ”
“Did she know Brett?”
“I would think so. Though she lives in Richmond, she was in Aubergine every summer, and we aren’t exactly a burgeoning metropolis.
” Aunt DeeDee considered and then snapped a finger.
“In fact, Brett worked the show a few times during his high school and college days. They’d have certainly run into each other then. ”
I tried to recall if I’d seen Brett at the pageant this past summer. Surely I would remember if he’d been in attendance, although my view of Brett until this weekend had been the less of him, the better.
Aunt DeeDee must’ve read my mind. “He wasn’t here this year, but I’m sure I’ve seen him in the audience at other pageants.
He liked to come home and show off his accomplishments, talk about whatever new thing he was planning.
None of them were really successful until that dreadful song and the TV show. ”
“You mentioned the film crew. Are you going to record tonight?” Lacy asked me.
“We’ll set up a camera in the corner. Just so we can catch any possible confession on film.”
“From your mouth to God’s ears.” Aunt DeeDee lifted her eyes to the heavens. “I’m just ready for all this to be over. Savilla and you two and The Rose have seen enough tragedy.”
She wasn’t wrong. I looked to Aunt DeeDee. “Are you joining us in the Vampire Room?”
“I’ll watch from the wings, as they say. But, honestly, that space has always creeped me out.”
“Because of the murals?” I recalled what Savilla had told me about her great-grandmother’s décor choices.
“No, not that,” Aunt DeeDee answered. “Though how anyone could think that a painting of a little boy being chased by a giant bat with fangs is a good idea for wall art is beyond me.”
I was intrigued.
“No,” Aunt DeeDee continued, “it’s the true story that disturbs me.
Years ago, when Mr. Finch was a kid, his father employed a butler who had terrible sleep issues.
” The mention of the butler reminded me of Savilla’s story about how the butler had died here decades earlier.
“Insomnia and sleepwalking. It grew so bad in fact that every night around two a.m., Frederick would awaken to hear the poor man climbing up and down the sub-basement stairs.”
“But aren’t all the family bedrooms on the third and fourth floors?” Lacy asked.
“That’s what was so strange. Mr. Finch swore that he could hear the squeaking all the way from the bottom floor of the house to the top.
” Aunt DeeDee ran a hand along the wall of the family room, covered in simple blue paint.
“I’ve heard strange sounds myself during pageant week.
I think it’s something to do with the construction. ”
Lacy and I caught one another’s eye, the memory of that locked room with no exit still on both of our minds. The Rose had more mysteries and hidden spaces than I’d ever imagined.
“One night, sometime in the nineteen fifties, I can’t quite remember the year, the butler was sleepwalking, and he fell headfirst down the stairs,” Aunt DeeDee continued.
“Mr. Finch heard the noise and ran down six flights of stairs to find the butler’s body lying across the threshold of the Vampire Room.
It looked like he’d somehow crawled there after breaking his neck. ”
“Or the room had pulled him inside,” Lacy said in a mock-spooky voice, as she wiggled her fingers in the air.
“Child, no. The good Lord has a plan for those he calls home,” Aunt DeeDee protested. “Still, some say that the butler’s footsteps can still be heard tromping back and forth, up and down the stairs. Not that I put any credence in that kind of nonsense.”
I shivered, despite the fact that I also refused to believe in such things.
“Your momma did some looking into our ancestry years ago and found out that the butler was our third cousin twice removed.”
That made me stop.
“We’re related to someone who worked at The Rose?” The idea of coming from a lineage on both sides of The Rose’s wealth distribution wasn’t one I’d considered.
Aunt DeeDee studied me, knowing that I was reckoning with my past in all sorts of ways this weekend.
I could suddenly see a family tree branching in two very different directions, one side providing the green canopy of shade for people to bask in and the other winding toward the forest floor, weighed down by heavy rains.
I now had to navigate both sides.