Chapter Thirty-Two

thirty-two

NATURALLY, SIMONE RESISTED JEMMA'S SUGGESTION. "We don't have time for games, you connasse ."

Jemma wagged a finger at her aunt. "And that's why I can't stand you. See that? That's me being honest. Ever since I came here, you've been nasty to me. And why? I didn't do anything to you. If anything, I should've been pissed off at all of you for what you did. And trust me—I was. I was so angry that for a while I didn't want to break the curse. I hoped all of you would just up and die, slow and painful. But then I realized I didn't want to die. I didn't want to be tied up in this cursed family. Hell, I wasn't raised with you. Why should I be punished like you? But no…" Jemma shook her head, a cheerless chuckle escaping her lips. "When I first came here, I was…enthralled by you. By your beauty. How beautiful you all are! And I wanted to be that and be close to that. I was jealous, yes, and I thought I was jealous of your beauty, but really, I was jealous of how people treated you because of that beauty. I wanted people to stop and stare at me, to fall over themselves just because of how I looked. But that's not going to happen to me, not here. You all think I'm ugly because of my skin, because I look like my father. I'll never be beautiful to you or to the world out there that judges people based on their color. But you know what? I might be ugly. By your standards, I am. But in here?" Jemma tapped her chest with a fist before waving her open hand around the table. "I'm much more beautiful than all of you. You're diseased inside, every last one of you."

Honorine rose from her seat, red splotches on her cheeks. "Enough!"

"No, Grandmère, it's not enough. Because it's time for you to tell your truth. You knew those bodies were buried underneath the floor, didn't you?"

"I knew no such thing."

"Liar! You knew because you're the one who tore that page out of the ledger. You're the only one who read all the books in the library. You knew, but you didn't want the rest of the family to know. You knew those dead slaves didn't rest easy, but you couldn't see them or hear them, so you couldn't fix anything. And that's why you made my mother sleep in that room next to the old kitchen. You wanted to drive her insane. You knew she saw ghosts, and you hoped they'd drive her out of her mind. I bet your new maid, what's-her-name out there—I bet she doesn't sleep there, does she? Where does she sleep, huh?"

"That's not true. Agnes…"

"Inès!" Jemma screamed. "Her name is Inès. And my name, the name she gave me before you made her give me away, is Emmaline."

"Amen, girl," Magdalene murmured.

"Corentin lived and died as a white man, but things changed with his son, didn't they? That's when the Duchons became so proud to be colored . Even before I got here, you were lying to me. You lied to get me down here and you lied to make me stay. This whole house is built on nothing but lies. But now? We're going to tear it down. We're going to root out all the lies and the betrayal and the hurt." Jemma looked at each of the family members in turn. "Which one of you can see ghosts?"

They wouldn't even look at one another, as if scared Jemma would see the truth in a glance. She turned to Simone.

"I don't think it's you. But I do think you hated my mother all your life because she was more beautiful and because your father loved her best. If you faced that, maybe some of that ugliness you wear would fall away."

Simone's jaw worked. Jemma fully expected her to spit some insult back at her, but when her aunt remained silent, a sheet of red rising slowly up her face, she knew she was right.

Next, she faced Fosette, whose hands were intertwined on the table.

"It's not you. You're too frightened. Besides, you're haunted by your own personal ghosts, right? Like a child you had, and maybe other children you wanted to have, but that's never going to happen. Because they fixed you, didn't they? They made it impossible for you to ever have another child."

Fosette's already white face grew even paler under Jemma's pointed words.

"How do you—?" Honorine started, her eyes fixed on Fosette.

"How do I know this?" Jemma asked, on her face a smile that revealed too many teeth. "Your own daughter told me that Fosette was fixed . ‘She was fixed but good,' Simone told me months ago. You people have hidden a lot of things, but you can't hide everything. Eventually the truth comes out. So, you? Are you the other one who can see spirits? Did my mother inherit that from you? I don't think so, so that leaves"—Jemma snapped her head to Russell—"you, Uncle."

He wouldn't meet his niece's eyes, simply studied the hands in his lap.

"Russell?" Honorine asked after a short laugh. "He couldn't possibly. He…"

"What? And why couldn't he? Because he's only concerned with physical things, like food and wine and other things we can touch and taste? Right—why would you think he could have any connection to anything spiritual?" She turned to Russell. "But when you tried to get away from here, after I tried to break the curse and messed things up instead, they did something to you, didn't they? What did you see? What did they tell you?"

"Leave me alone, girl," he said, his gaze still in his lap.

"You want to die next time? Because that can happen, sooner than you want. It's time to speak the truth."

Russell's eyes met hers then. Unlike the women in the family, he didn't look afraid. "It's true. I can see them, although they don't call to me like they called to Inès. She wanted to help them. They simply flit around me, barely more than shadows." He hugged himself, a lopsided smile playing across his lips. "And you're right. When I tried to get away, they grabbed me. They held me in a dark, cold place for what felt like forever. They whispered to me endlessly, although I couldn't tell if it was day or night. But they never stopped, just kept telling me things about our family, about how they died, about what I did to your mother."

"What did they tell you?"

He didn't answer for several moments, but in the end, perhaps the thought of someone's certain death—maybe his own—loosened his lips. "I know about the bodies."

Honorine gasped, while Simone threw him a sharp, troubled glance. Fosette didn't move, simply continued to stare at him across the table as if Russell were talking about a new pair of shoes he'd just bought.

"Maybe that's where they kept me," he continued. "In that space where they're trapped." A high-pitched titter escaped him. "It's funny, isn't it? All these years, we've been trapped, but so have they. None of us has been able to leave."

"The bodies of the slaves? They held you?" Simone asked, looking from Russell to Jemma to Honorine. "What's he talking about?"

"The bodies your family has been sleeping on top of for decades, even before any of you were born. The people Corentin owned and the people he allowed to die." Jemma hauled the sledgehammer and the shovel from the floor next to her and slammed them on the table. "The people we're about to set free."

—

AT FIRST JEMMA HAD THOUGHT she'd have to drag the Duchons into the small room off the kitchen, so she was surprised when they came willingly, Simone bringing up the rear, fear shining out of her eyes.

Magdalene was a calming presence. Jemma was glad her friend had insisted on being there with her, because she'd never felt more anxious. She had no plan, which no one knew besides her. How she wished her mother were here, just to have someone else supporting her.

She knew the Duchons were humoring her only because they wanted to save their own skins. Besides her mother, her brother had been the only family who might have loved Jemma for being Jemma and didn't only need her to do something for them. How different things could be if they were with her now.

But Jemma shook that off.

All her life, she'd looked to other people for acceptance, for love. She'd thought that if she were only pretty enough, smart enough, or something else enough, they would love her. And all the while, she hadn't loved herself enough. She hadn't realized that what she needed most was herself.

As she stood in front of what used to be her mother's bed, she knew she didn't need Inès, Laurence or Magdalene. She would have appreciated the others' being there, but she was a whole person on her own, capable of doing what she had to do.

"I am enough," she said in a low voice.

And with that, she brought the sledgehammer behind her before swinging it in a wide arc into the wall.

—

IT HAD BEEN MUCH HARDER than Jemma expected, breaking through layers of brick. With each swing, she was only vaguely aware of the people behind her, of the controlled chaos. It was as if she were on the other side of the wall, listening to them, from Russell's quizzical muttering to Honorine's occasional snappy question. Not surprisingly, her grandmother had lunged forward and tried to grab her when Jemma first broke into the wall, but someone (Magdalene, most likely) pulled her away. And now no one answered Honorine's questions. Fosette was strangely quiet, and so was Simone. Jemma didn't know what her cousin felt, but her aunt was clearly terrified. The thought spurred her on despite the pain increasing in her forearms and moving up to her shoulders.

"Talk to me," she whispered at one point. "Help me."

Had she expected the spirits—Adam, Jane and the rest—to help her? A part of her mind chided her for the thought.

No, a voice whispered in her mind, a voice that sounded very much like what she imagined her mother would sound like. This is your work, girl.

And yet an eagerness pressed against her, letting her know that the spirits were indeed present.

At one point, Magdalene asked if she wanted her to take over. Jemma paused just long enough to tell her friend no, that this was something she had to do on her own. She licked sweat away from her upper lip, ignoring the itchy way it trailed down her face, down her spine. Her muscles ached from her arms to her legs. She laughed once, a high yelp. Why did her legs hurt so much? Why did everything hurt? But still she swung the hammer, until the small window that she'd had to wriggle through before was large enough for her to easily fit through. Just a little more.

When Russell touched her arm, Jemma wondered at first what he wanted. He pulled the hammer out of her slack grasp without a word and took up the job, his clumsy movements indicating a man unused to manual labor.

After a while there was no sound except the heavy thud of the hammer against brick. Slam. Slam. Slam , in regular intervals, the sound growing louder and louder, no background voices to cushion it.

The window transformed into a rough doorway.

Jemma peered inside, aware of the rest of the family crowding around her.

The smell of smoke poured out of the old kitchen.

Behind her came the sounds of coughing.

"Magdalene? Can you get me a light? And bring the shovel."

A few moments later, Jemma felt a lantern pressed into her hand. She raised it in front of her, the light shining off the four walls, the rough ceiling and the packed-dirt floor.

"Adam? Jane?"

No answer.

Jemma turned to find Magdalene gazing at her. A hint of anxiety shone on the older woman's face, but her determination was stronger. She squeezed Jemma's hand.

As Jemma stepped through, she tugged Magdalene with her, and then the two of them peeked out of the hole in the wall. Jemma imagined how she must look in the murky light, covered in brick dust and sweat.

"Are you coming?" she asked her family.

Honorine squared her shoulders before stepping through. The moment she was inside, she turned to Russell, who followed. Fosette came next, and she pulled at her mother to get Simone into the room. The four of them stood to the side, against a wall, as Jemma and Magdalene looked at the fireplace from their spot in the center of the room. They took in the rough stone walls. If Jemma reached an arm up, she could almost touch the low ceiling. And when she looked down at the floor, she jumped, steering Magdalene to the side of the fireplace.

"We were standing on them," she said.

"What now, Emmaline?"

"Hand me the shovel. It's time to get them out."

"You don't think they should have to help?" her friend snapped, raising a chin toward the Duchons.

"Not yet. I don't want the first face they see to look just like the man who let them lie here all these years. Even though I'm family, I don't look like the others."

After Jemma broke through the first few inches of the floor, it became easier. The soil loosened up. Jemma tossed shovelfuls of it over one shoulder, hearing a slushy slap as dirt hit the wall, over and over. Her movements grew frantic. Tears and lines of sweat mixed in trails down her face, but Jemma didn't feel or taste any of it. She was in the grip of some force. She knew that if anyone had tried to stop her or pull the shovel from her hands, she would have fought back. She was covered in dirt, could feel grit on her tongue. More than once, she used a forearm to wipe dirt from her face only to leave more behind.

Although no spirits showed themselves, she felt a presence, calm and eager at the same time. It pressed against her, as if peering over her shoulder with greedy eyes, its bony fingers gripping her upper arm.

"Which one are you?" she huffed, not pausing for a second. "Don't worry. I'm almost there."

"Let me help you, girl," Magdalene said when Jemma had stopped digging because a lightness gripped her head, threatening to send her careening to the floor. That was the only reason she agreed to let her friend take over.

As Magdalene worked her way into the hole, only a foot deep and about three feet wide, Jemma slumped against the fireplace, being overtaken by a weariness so complete that she wanted to lie on her side and sleep for days. But that eagerness thrummed over everything, keeping her awake. She wanted to see them. She had to see them.

Across the room, the Duchons huddled. Russell was also lounging on the floor, seemingly unconcerned about getting any dirtier. But the three women stood in a group, Simone clutching her mother while Fosette stared hard at the enlarging hole, her gray eyes reflecting the lantern light. Her fingers worked themselves into fists and then splayed out at regular intervals.

What Jemma wouldn't have given to have her mother there with her. Where was she? Was she okay? Was Dennis watching over her?

Too tired to move, Jemma simply blew out a hard breath. Maybe, like Magdalene, she'd take up residence in the woods, find her own cabin. The thought curved a half smile on Jemma's lips. Before she'd come down here, she'd never wanted to be anywhere near the woods. She was much more comfortable among concrete and asphalt and brick, weaving her way through bustling crowds, experiencing winters that were actually cold.

She thought of Marvin, too, of his child that was lost, wondered whether he was with the child's mother. Before, she'd often hoped that he'd abandoned that woman, that he'd somehow find Jemma and show up at the door, begging her to come back to Chicago with him. She'd imagined scenarios full of flowers and apologies, of promises and rings. But now she felt nothing when she thought of him.

"What did you say?" Jemma asked. Honorine had murmured something. When she didn't reply, Jemma repeated the question, leaning forward.

"I said, you've destroyed this entire home. And for what? There's nothing there."

"There is something there, which we'll all see soon enough. I destroyed this home? Maybe if our ancestor hadn't built it back up over a pile of bodies I wouldn't have had to. But this house was destroyed long before I got here. You just couldn't see it."

"I'm telling you—"

"Maman," Russell said, startling all of them. "They're there."

Only then did Honorine seem to accept the reason for their being here, from Jemma's tearing down the wall to digging up the floor. All it took was a few words from her son.

"Oh," Magdalene breathed softly, setting the shovel on its end, her hand balanced on the handle. She gazed into the wide hole, only a little deeper than a foot but about four feet wide.

Jemma scrambled forward on her hands and knees, pulling the lantern over and holding it above the hole.

"What is it? What did you find?" Simone asked, shrinking back against the wall, turning her head toward the exit as if readying herself to flee.

Only Russell rose and approached, to stand next to Magdalene and on the opposite side from Jemma. A grim expression colored his face, eerie in the low light coming from the floor.

Jemma made out a bone. As she moved the lantern, the light revealed the length of it, along with another. The bones looked like a leg, bent at the knee. She reached out and touched it, rubbed a finger along its smooth length, the grit of dirt rough beneath her touch. She didn't know who this was, but she knew they weren't alone. They'd continue digging to reveal the rest of this person, as well as the others with whom they'd shared this grave.

"It's one of them," Jemma said, looking toward the family before looking at Magdalene. "From here on, we have to use our hands."

Jemma and Magdalene scooped the dirt, moving more slowly as they got deeper. Without words, they instinctively knew that they didn't want to disturb the bones. They needed to leave them in place and not disrupt them any more than necessary. They deserved that much, at least.

Finally, after what felt like hours, the hole was expanded to almost ten feet across, revealing most of seven skeletons scattered in a compact heap.

A sob escaped Jemma's lips. Knowing that her family was capable of such horror was one thing, but to see the aftermath was another. She was descended from a murderer. Murderers, her mind corrected her.

Her fingers curved over one side of the hole, a steady stream of tears making tracks through the dirt covering her face. She looked up at her family, their forms blurry.

"This is why we're cursed."