3
“Goodness! You made it!” Daphne Narcisse had burst out of the inn to greet him. “Thank the Lord!”
Leo gave her a hug. “Your prayers are answered.”
Daphne flashed a toothy smile. She was unchanged from their last encounter. Deep brown skin, long, thin braids, light cotton
dress, leather sandals.
“You’re early,” she said. “We have champagne on ice, but the staff isn’t ready.”
“I’m good,” he said.
He was the first of the seven authors to arrive. He would’ve shown up earlier had he not indulged in a three-day detour. On
Monday he’d stopped at Big Pine Key, booked a room, and sought out a dive shop. He spent his days in the water, his evenings
writing.
“Thanks for doing this,” she said. “I owe you one.”
“It’ll be like old times.”
“No, it won’t!” she said, laughing over the soft gurgle of a fountain. “I’m forty. I can’t hang out like that anymore. My
back hurts and my hands are full. This weekend I’m herding cats. But don’t worry. You’ll have fun. This group is young and
lively.”
“I’m not worried,” he said. “If I can’t have fun in Key West, check my pulse.”
They weren’t close friends, but they’d bonded through trauma one summer, teaching a workshop at Bennington.
Daphne had made the best of the experience.
Strategic networking landed her a prestigious gig, editing The Best American Short Stories anthology the following year.
Leo went on to do what he did best: avoid anything resembling a classroom. Goodness, it was
dull. And yet he’d accepted her late invitation to the free event organized to stoke public interest in the literary arts.
She’d pleaded over the phone for the favor. “Gregory Fox left us high and dry!”
“Fuck Gregory Fox.”
Goody-goody Daphne echoed the sentiment without the salty language. “He was our headliner. I need a big name to replace him.
That’s you.”
“Is it?”
“I wanted you all along. I just knew you’d reject me.”
He laughed. “Stop!”
“Please, Leo! I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t desperate.”
The famous Mr. Fox was best known for his 2019 smash hit The Cannibals Next Door. In his latest interview with NPR, he mentioned renting a villa in Jamaica for the summer to finish a novel and revise a
screenplay. Busy man.
The valet attendant returned his keys along with a ticket to claim the vehicle, which Leo had no intention of doing.
“I can’t believe you drove all the way down here from . . . where again?”
“San Francisco.”
Leo had spent the past five years in England, where he published two novels and broke off an engagement. When he returned
stateside, he bought a Mustang and hit the road, living a teenage fantasy, Sal Paradise but single and sober, which made things . . .
interesting. But if he were going to think clearly, see clearly, be clear with himself, for once, he had to turn down the Corona and lime.
“I could never,” she said. “I hate road trips. Where are you headed after this?”
“Charleston . . . to stay with friends.”
“I love Charleston,” she said with a sigh. “Those tree-lined streets, grand homes . . . a dream!”
“My friend inherited one,” he said. “It’s haunted.”
Daphne rolled her eyes behind horn-rimmed glasses. “As is this mansion,” she said, referring to the inn. “You won’t be missing
out on any paranormal activity.”
She put paranormal in air quotes, which didn’t surprise him. Daphne was a Haitian American short story writer. Though her home country’s mythology
was steeped in magic and mysticism, she had no use for it. Her stories dealt with the horrific conditions Haitian migrants
often face. Leo was too much of an opportunist to let a plot device go to waste. He was hooked the moment he received his
friend’s postcard with a message jotted in blotched ink: Set your next book here! Spooks are loose!
He stepped back to consider the alleged eeriness before him. Squinting from the sun, he took in the mansion in all its glory.
Painted antique blue offset with white trim, the stacked balconies led up to a steeply pitched roof. A tower was tacked onto
the main frame for no conceivable reason except for show. At the time of its construction, it must have been the crown jewel
of the block. Today, though, repainted, polished, and updated in various ways, it had a tragic air. It looked down at its
surroundings with disapproval. Its neighbors were in the same line of business. The property on its right advertised free
in-room Wi-Fi. Its rival on the corner, for adults only, had no vacancy.
A porter took Leo’s suitcase, but he held on to his computer bag. Daphne offered him a tour of the property. “We booked all
the rooms. We have the place to ourselves!”
Leo wasn’t in the mood. He was hot, sweaty, in need of a shower and a shave. He hadn’t even started on the keynote address.
If he didn’t get to it, he’d end up delivering a version of the commencement speech he delivered last year at his alma mater.
“I’ll make it quick,” she promised.
The tour started in the sitting room off the lobby among ceiling fans and ferns. Daphne led him to an oil painting of a man with an expression so stern nothing could soften it, not even his cottony beard.
“Who’s this jolly old man?” Leo asked.
“I’ll tell you in a sec.”
Below the painting was a display case. Daphne opened it with a key retrieved at the front desk. The mementos on display likely
belonged to the Father Time in the painting, each item bronzed with age. There was an embroidered handkerchief, a Bible, a
cravat pin, a portrait locket, a compass, and a pocket watch.
With a nod to Father Time, Daphne said, “That’s William Jacobsen, master shipbuilder.” She removed the portrait locket from
the case and showed him the sepia-toned photograph of a smiling young woman with golden hair. “This is his third wife. He
was widowed three times.”
“You’d think the man could take a hint,” Leo said.
Daphne reached for the Bible, flipped it open to a page with a handwritten record of births and deaths:
William Jacobsen, 1821–1887
Aurora Jacobsen, née Martinez, 1870–1886
The list went on with other family events, pale blue ink on yellowed paper, but only one detail leaped out at Leo. “That’s
an age gap.”
Daphne nodded.
“And they died one year apart?”
“Less than a year, really. She took her own life.”
“Hence the haunting.”
“Hence indeed. They say this house was a gilded cage, and to this day she can’t break free. If you believe in all that stuff.”
Daphne carefully put the items away and returned the key to management. Leo shook off his fatigue, got his bearings. He did believe in all that stuff, which meant that he was in the right place. Alright, Aurora. Give me what you got.
“Now comes the good part,” Daphne said. “Your room.”
His suite of rooms was a more accurate description.
“We put you in the Royal Suite,” Daphne said. “Not that royalty would stay here, but one can dream.”
Leo followed her up a grand staircase to the second floor, then down a narrow hall. She used a skeleton key to unlock the
carved wooden door. He paused at the threshold of a sitting room, set up like a proper English parlor. He half expected the
lady of the house to step out of the shadows and offer tea. She ventured inside and checked the thermostat. “The bathroom
is the door to your left,” she said. “This is the only room with a tub.”
Leo took in the polished antiques, new handwoven rugs spread over old wood floors, the lace drapes that framed the windows,
and the oil paintings that covered the walls. “This is a lot for just one person.”
“This is what Mr. Fox requested,” Daphne said.
“Yeah, but . . . it’s isolated from the others, isn’t it?”
“That’s exactly what Mr. Fox wanted.”
“I see.”
“If you’re uncomfortable, I can arrange—”
“No,” he said. “I’m good.”
She took a breath. “Want to see the best part?”
“Better than the curio cabinet?”
“Yes, you idiot,” she teased. “You have your own personal study.”
“Where?”
She pointed to a winding staircase with a wood spindle balustrade that he’d somehow missed. “This is the only room that leads
up to the turret.”
“To the . . . what?”
“Your private tower.”
“Nothing good ever happens in a tower.”
“Let’s hope you’re the exception.”
Daphne led him up the staircase. Any reservations Leo had about the Royal Suite left him. The rounded walls were fitted with
floor to ceiling bookcases stuffed with old books. A rolling ladder helped make the rounds. A mahogany desk anchored the space.
A pair of worn leather chairs faced it. The morning light poured in through the round windows, not a lace curtain in sight.
“You could get a lot of work done here,” she said. “What are you working on, anyway?”
“Nothing much,” he admitted.
“Really?”
He shrugged. “How about you?”
“Besides herding cats?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Do you like it down here?”
She was a Miami native—that much he knew. In her twenties, she rose to fame with prize-winning stories in The New Yorker and The Paris Review. She held a teaching position at UM because, as she put it, “short stories don’t pay the bills.”
“It’s a summer appointment,” she said. “It gets me out of the city and looks good on the résumé.”
“There are worse ways to go about it,” he said.
Leo had narrowly avoided the teaching track most writers opted for out of necessity. When his third novel was optioned for
a movie, he was twenty-six and accustomed to poverty. Then his backlist picked up, selling like hotcakes at every major airport,
and his financial advisor assured him that if he played his cards right, invested and saved, he’d never have to worry about
money again. He could write, travel, and generally fuck around to his heart’s content. Life was too short, and he’d watched
more talented people piss it away on work that didn’t matter to them to pay those damn bills.
“What do you think?” Daphne said, asking about the space. “You like?”
If nothing else, he could get some writing done, continue drafting an outline for the South Carolina project. The setting
mattered. His debut, The Forever Toll, was set in the suburbs of New Jersey, where he was born and raised. The second, in Coney Island, where his family had spent
most of their summers. The third was set in London, a good excuse to live abroad. The fourth in France, for the same reason.
Now he had his sights on South Carolina.
“I like it,” he said.
“It’s settled, then.”
The tour was over. He followed Daphne down the stairs. On the main floor she pointed to a pair of French doors. “Those open
to the balcony,” she said. “The doorknob is stiff. You’ve got to jiggle it a little.”
“Got it,” he said.
“Don’t forget. Welcome cocktails in the garden at six. Everyone will want to meet you.”
“Lucky me.”
“Loosen up! You’re in Margaritaville.”
“In that case, I’ll take mine on the rocks!” he called after her. But at second thought, no.
Daphne shut the door on her way out. Exhausted, Leo fell face-first onto the sofa under the bank of windows.
A chorus of laughter stirred him awake, alerting him to her arrival. He wouldn’t know her by the sound of her laugh. He’d
never heard it. She hadn’t so much as cracked a smile at him. But he was guided by instinct.
Leo rolled off the sofa and raced to the double doors. He jiggled the knob and threw the doors open. On the balcony he had
a clear view of the courtyard.
There she was.
He hadn’t accepted Daphne’s last-minute invitation out of the goodness of his heart or for the love of literature, the respect
of cultural exchange, or the desire to explore Key West. He would’ve turned her down in a heartbeat. But he’d made the mistake
of tapping the link she’d sent him and scrolled through the list of participants, the usual author bios and thumbnail photos.
One name stood out, and suddenly Leo had a change of heart. Key West was such a singular place. Plenty to draw inspiration from. Why not give it a go?
That was roughly what he’d told Daphne over the phone. His true motivation was more complicated. One night, almost ten years
to date, a waitress lent a lighter to a stranger in an alley and lit his imagination on fire.
Looking down at her now, he willed her to meet his eyes, but she was busy chatting with the others. He recognized Vicky Paraíso,
whom he’d met in Tokyo, from her head of curls and wicked laugh. The tall, elegant Black woman was Ayesha Eze Grant. She and
Leo went way back. Daphne was there to greet them.
While the others chatted, she stood to the side, laughter swirling around her. When prompted, she handed her luggage to the
same porter that had taken his. She accepted the glass of champagne that he’d turned down. Champagne in this heat? She sipped and took in her surroundings. Her gaze skimmed the cool blue facade of the inn, framed with crisp white trim,
the wide plank steps that led up to the wraparound porch, and the bronze plaque over the door that read Est. 1882. Nothing escaped that perceptive gaze. He should’ve known the night of their first encounter that he was talking to a fellow
writer.
Look up.
The “turret” was the most striking detail of the property. Someone had been held captive up there, Aurora or someone else,
he just knew it. How could she miss it? Wasn’t she intrigued?
She didn’t raise her eyes. She followed the others up the stairs and into the house.
Frustrated, Leo returned to his room. He’d come to Key West to answer one question: Would he see that same old flame in her eyes?
It was a long way to travel to answer an inconsequential question.
A lot had changed in ten years. They weren’t the same people.
But he’d made it a point to follow his curiosity, and it had taken him here, to the southernmost point of the continental US.