Compulsion (22 page)

“All right.” Eight frowned down at her, looking confused.

Barrie managed a dignified walk back into the house. Once inside, though, she raced across the foyer and up the stairs, her thoughts flying in every direction. Halfway to the landing, a step pitched suddenly, throwing her shoulder-first into the wall as her feet slipped. Her hip smacked the edge of the tread. She landed three steps down, and her elbow hit the step above her.

“Damn,” she said, out of breath and choking on outrage.

“Are you all right?” Pru poked her head over the railing
again. “Hold on. Don’t move until I get there.” She sprinted down the stairs.

Barrie pulled herself up to sit on the step. The sound of Mary’s footsteps running down the corridor blurred into the rush of Pru’s descent.

Mary barely came into view before she started scolding: “Didn’t you hear your aunt?” she asked. “Don’t you go gettin’ up until we’ve had a look at you.”

Barrie rested her shoulder against the wall, and Pru dropped to the step beside her. “That’s twice you’ve almost killed yourself on this staircase.”

“Three times,” Barrie said. As soon as the words were out, she wished she could take them back. There was no point in worrying Pru, but it couldn’t be coincidence. The house, the spirits, the Fire Carrier . . . something was out to get her.

Seeing Pru and Mary exchange a look filled with horror, Barrie suspected they had reached the same conclusion. Mary’s finger twitched as if she wanted to waggle it at Pru, but she folded her arms and glared at her instead.

“I told you,” Mary said.

“You didn’t tell me she would fall down the stairs.”

“I told you they’re gettin’ worse.”

“What am I supposed to do,” Pru snapped, “replace every screw and nut and peg in the house with iron? It would look hideous, and they’d only find something else to break.”

“You mark my words, you or the child—someone’s gonna get hurt. You can’t just keep hoping they’ll stop if you ignore ’em long enough.”

“But
why
are they doing it?” Barrie asked. It made no sense.

Pru and Mary turned to her with matching expressions of surprise.

“It’s not like they’re doing any real damage,” Barrie continued. “Except to me. Dismantling one stair at a time, one shutter . . . That seems more like a message than taking the house apart. Plus, if you’re still feeding them, why are they acting up at all?”

Mary stiffened like a corpse and narrowed her eyes at Pru. “Tell me I didn’t hear that right.”

Conveniently letting her hair fall to hide her face, Pru bent to examine Barrie’s elbow. “Does this hurt bad, sugar? How hard did you hit it?”

“Don’t you go pretendin’ you didn’t hear me.” Mary poked Pru on the chest. “Haven’t I told you and told you to leave ’em
plat eyes
alone?”

“Plat eyes?”
Barrie pulled her arm away and tucked it behind her back, peering from Pru to Mary and back again. “What are
plat eyes
?”

Mary’s lips fused into a stubborn seam, and Pru heaved a sigh. “They’re what the Gullah—the descendants of the
West Indian and Angolan slaves here on the sea islands—call the spirits of the unburied or carelessly buried dead. Mary insists that’s what the
yunwi
really are.”

“No insisting ’bout it. I’ve seen ’em, haven’t I?” Mary said. “Not that I wanted to. One look in their fire eyes, and they’ll grow and grow till they swallow you whole. What we need around here are some bottle trees. Then we trap ’em before they make more trouble.”

“Bottle trees?” Pru glared back at her. “Even if that worked, don’t you think the Fire Carrier would mind just a little if we did that?”

Before Mary could answer and the argument could escalate—which it was going to, Barrie could tell already—the door opened and Eight leaned inside. “Are you about ready, Bear? We’ve got— Hey!” He crossed to the stairs. “What happened?”

“Nothing. I’m a klutz, in case you didn’t get the memo,” Barrie said. “And I still need to get my sweater.” Mindful of the broken step, she hurried upstairs, grabbed a sweater from the armoire in her bedroom, and ran back down to find Eight alone in the foyer. “Where did Pru and Mary go?”

“That way.” He pointed down the corridor toward the kitchen. “They were arguing like a couple of hissing geese. So now are you going to tell me what happened?”

Barrie debated whether to say anything at all; she was
so tired of all the half answers. “Have you ever seen the Fire Carrier?” she asked. “Actually seen him?”

Holding the door for her, Eight paused. “Why do you want me to have seen him?”

“Don’t answer a question with a question. I’m onto you.” Barrie slapped him on the arm.

He stayed a step behind her so she couldn’t see his face. “A lot of people have—or claim they have. Anyone with Watson or Beaufort or Colesworth blood. Anyone sensitive to ghosts or psychic events. Not to mention the frauds who come down and make a production of it. We’ve even had a guy from MIT insisting it’s some kind of freak weather phenomenon around this part of the island.”

“But what do you see? What does the Fire Carrier look like?”

“Like a witch light moving through the woods and a wash of red and orange on the river, like sunset by moonlight. Except it happens even when the moon is covered.” Eight held the passenger door, then went around to start the car. “I looked up the
yunwi
like you asked, by the way.”

“Did you find anything helpful?”

“If by ‘helpful’ you mean ‘confusing,’ sure. If you’re hoping I found an article titled ‘
Yunwi
, Instructions on Exorcism of,’ then not so much.”

Barrie swallowed a sigh. “And?”

“The word means ‘people,’ which, unhelpfully, doesn’t distinguish between living or dead, human or supernatural. The Cherokee believe there are both
yunwi
water spirits and something called ‘little people,’ who either torment you or bring good fortune, depending on how you treat them and what kind of person you are. Hold on.” He held up his hand as Barrie opened her mouth. “Before you say ‘And?’ again, that’s it. That’s all I’ve got.”

Barrie swallowed the urge to slap him. But then she processed the rest of what he’d said. “So I must really be a horrible person,” she said. “Or I accidentally did something to piss them off.”

“Why do you think so?”

“Because they’re dismantling pieces of the house again.”

The engine revved, and Eight shifted into a lower gear. “Dismantling, like taking the screws out of shutters and the security chain off kitchen doors, you mean?”

“Also banisters and steps and chair legs.” Barrie nodded. “But there is a better question. How do we make them stop?”

Behind the stage the eight lighted columns of Colesworth Place rose like the skeletons of the dying South against a bloody sky. A fitting backdrop for Cassie’s play.

A high school boy in a Confederate uniform led Barrie and Eight through a small crowd of tourists fanning themselves with programs. In the center of the front row, he picked up a pair of
RESERVED
signs from the folding metal chairs.

“Enjoy the show,” he said. Giving them a smart salute, he clicked his heels together and turned back to the ticket table.

Barrie took her seat, but the pull of something lost drew her attention beyond the columns to where the mansion had stood. Something
was
buried there; Cassie was right. Something big. The pressure made Barrie’s head ache even
worse. At the rate she was going, she’d need to buy stock in whatever company manufactured Tylenol.

“It’s nice that Cassie is so modest about taking credit.” Eight leaned closer and tapped the thin program in Barrie’s hand.

Barrie scanned the text.
Written by C. Colesworth based on a novel by Margaret Mitchell, Produced by C. Colesworth, Directed by C. Colesworth, Starring Cassandra Colesworth and the Santisto Players.

“Who are the Santisto Players?” she asked, shrugging off Eight’s sarcasm.

“The high school drama club.” Eight stretched his legs alongside hers, close but not quite touching. “The principal won’t let them say so because Cassie stole the story to write the play. He doesn’t want the school to get in trouble.”

“So all these kids are Cassie’s friends?”

“I wouldn’t go that far.”

Barrie turned to look around. The seven rows of seats were filling up, and again, she and Eight seemed to be the main attraction. In the area to the right of the stage marked
Actors Only
, girls in hoopskirts and boys in bow ties and formal coats took turns peering at her from the gap between the curtains. People in the audience cast her curious glances. A curl of annoyance tightened in her chest, but she pushed it down, told herself she was fine. She just wished the play would hurry up and start.

“It’s only a few more minutes,” Eight said. “Are you hungry yet? I could go get our food.” He pointed at someone carrying a small wicker picnic basket from the concessions stand.

Food was the last thing Barrie wanted. Or the second to last thing, because having Eight leave her alone with all these people staring at her would be worse. On the flip side, eating would give her something to do with her hands.

Before she could make up her mind, Eight turned to smile at a dark-haired girl in a pale pink costume who was coming down the aisle. “Hey, Sydney.” His greeting was friendlier than he had ever been with Cassie. “You here to meet your cousin?”

“I was hoping to,” Sydney said. Her smile was tentative, and she lifted both hands to call attention to the picnic basket and the steaming bowl she carried. “I brought y’all some food.”

Barrie set the program on the seat beside her and rose, only to stand there with no idea what to do. Cassie had made this part of their introduction easy, sweeping her into a hug and eliminating all the awkwardness. Sydney, clearly, wasn’t as outgoing.

“I’m so glad you came over. Is it okay if I give you a hug?” Barrie asked. “It’s amazing to have cousins.”

“Sydney?” Cassie’s head turtled out from behind the curtain. “What are you doing? Come back over here.”

Sydney gave Barrie a bobbing nod. “Sorry! I’ve got to go.” She pushed the food at Eight and turned to hurry away. After a couple of steps, though, she ran back and threw her arms around Barrie. “I’m so glad to meet you.” Barrie barely had time to return the squeeze before Sydney rushed away, calling over her shoulder, “There are sandwiches, drinks, and cookies in the baskets, plus cocktail sauce, napkins, and utensils.”

Eight and Barrie slipped back into their seats, and he handed her the steaming bowl.

“What is it?” Barrie asked.

“Frogmore Stew. Otherwise known as low-country boil. Try it.”

“There aren’t any actual frogs in it, are there?” Barrie drew the line at eating frogs. Or snakes. Or insects, for that matter. She could make a list. But as Eight laughed and shook his head, she had to admit the dish was delicious to look at: pink shrimp, white clams, red-skinned potatoes quartered to show the creamy middles, bright hunks of yellow corn on the cob, and some kind of sausage. It could have been a still-life painting of
Bounty from a Cornucopia
, but it had no relationship to stew. There wasn’t a real sauce, for one thing, and how was she supposed to eat it gracefully?

“Don’t bother with the knife and fork. That’s what napkins are for.” Eight retrieved a stack from one of the baskets and spread them several layers thick on the ground for the
husks and shells. Then he squirted cocktail sauce into one section of the bowl.

Barrie nibbled a potato wedge. The flavors bloomed on her tongue, and she let her eyes flutter closed as she concentrated: “Lemon, salt, celery seed, onion, pepper, cloves, bay leaves—”

Eight bent closer, his breath warm on her cheek. “What are you saying?”

Her eyes flew open. “Nothing.” She hadn’t even realized she was speaking aloud. “I was separating flavors into ingredients,” she admitted. “It’s not a game, exactly, more an experiment my . . . godfather and I used to do at home.” The thought of Mark left her with a pang of loneliness.

Eight’s lips twitched into a grin. “You cook?”

“Yes.” Barrie felt warm and breathless from the way he looked at her.

A slow drumroll made them startle apart. Two football-player types dressed in Confederate gray marched onto the stage. Pulling on ropes hidden behind the broken columns, they raised a sheet of canvas to create a backdrop and turned to stand at attention. Four more boys carried in a framed front door, a small table, and a pair of swinging benches. They all saluted the audience and walked off in step with one another. The stage and columns went dark, leaving only the sunset to illuminate the grounds.

The beat of the drums faded, and the first mournful notes of “Dixie” ghosted through the trees. Behind the audience a light snapped on, projecting the porch of a plantation house onto the canvas backdrop. The front door in the image aligned perfectly with the prop onstage, which opened on a creaky note to admit Cassie and two boys, all of them in aristocratic costumes. They were followed by a girl dressed as a slave, who balanced glasses and a pitcher of lemonade on a tray.