Chapter Nine

nine

SINCE JEMMA HAD MADE THE decision to stay, it seemed something had shifted, just slightly. That harridan Simone didn't seem quite so awful, although she couldn't see herself referring to the woman as Aunt Simone. At dinner, Jemma joined in the conversation a little, still too intimidated to do more than contribute her opinion about the latest headlines, from James Meredith integrating the University of Mississippi (Jemma had been alone in considering him a hero) to debate over whether Billy Eckstine or Jackie Wilson was the better singer. Jemma was completely lost over their discussion of Vatican II.

After breakfast, she often visited the library with a yellow legal pad, rapidly filling with notes, tucked under her arm. The books helped in her research into curses, but she needed more. She wished she knew someone who was an expert in occult topics, someone who could guide her toward the solution.

Between the research and finding a rhythm that fit with the rest of the family, she'd suppressed any thought of ghosts.

Until a week after meeting Magdalene.

As Jemma placed a few leftover calas from breakfast in a napkin, intending to take the soft rice fritters to her new friend, Simone strolled into the dining room. Jemma ignored her, although it was unusual for her aunt to come back into the room after their meals. But not sensing any movement or hearing Simone speak, Jemma looked over to where the woman leaned back against the sideboard, her hands gripping the edge of it, her eyes locked on her niece.

"Are you getting close to figuring things out?" Simone asked. "We only have a few more months before your next birthday."

Jemma tied the cloth napkin into a loose knot and hugged the small bundle to herself. "A little."

"I would love for my daughter to get out of this place." Simone's eyes took in the room, but Jemma knew she was talking about the house, the entire property. It was the first time her aunt had talked to her without venom dripping off every word. Yet Simone was the last person Jemma trusted. She imagined her aunt was like a mad dog—it might only look at you while you reach a hand out, but you shouldn't be shocked when it turns around and snaps at you. "She might still have time to find a husband. He'd have to be okay with her age, though, the fact that she can't have children. She was fixed but good, you know. No idea where such a man exists. But she didn't deserve this. None of us did." Simone leveled Jemma with a look that let her know exactly who was to blame. "Where do you go when you walk out back?"

The sudden question caught Jemma off guard. She'd stopped listening at "She was fixed but good." What did that mean for Fosette? Had someone fixed her so that she couldn't have children?

An image of Fosette fussing in Jemma's hair, helping her with rag curls, rose in her mind. The delicate way her cousin patted her handiwork and, beaming, held out a mirror for her. And her cousin slipping her arm through Jemma's as they climbed the stairs before bed, Fosette kissing her on the cheek and whispering, "Sweet dreams, cousin."

Oh God, what had they done to her?

Simone was waiting for an answer. Jemma had wondered if anyone would notice her absences, and if so, when they'd question her about them. Of course they'd pick up on any little action that deviated from the monotony of their days. She hadn't hidden that she was visiting Magdalene, but she hadn't told anyone about it, either, simply would walk across the back lawn into the cool of the woods and spend half a day, sometimes until dinnertime, with the only nonfamily she knew here.

Did they even remember that the midwife lived back there?

"I just like spending time along the edge of the woods. It's cooler there."

"Russell thinks you're back there rutting with some moonshiner just inside the trees. The property line ends right there, so you can't go far. Maybe. Is that what you're doing? Fucking some dirty old man?" Simone pushed herself off the sideboard to make her slow way around the perimeter of the room. Jemma clutched the napkin tighter, her head down. She didn't care what they thought, but she also didn't want to tell her aunt anything. None of them deserved the truth. Jemma wanted to hold Magdalene, and the time she spent with her, close, in secret. Something of her own.

Simone stopped behind Jemma, the warmth of her body pressing against her niece's shoulder. "I told him you weren't doing anything of the sort. Not our little Jemma, Inès's little mistake—"

Jemma whirled and faced the woman. "Don't say that about me."

"Or what? What are you going to do? Curse me like my sister cursed us? You don't have it in you. I've told Maman that you also don't have it in you to undo what was done. Come March next year, one of us will be dead, just like every other time. But probably not you, because you're not really one of us. I've watched you cross that back lawn and go into the trees and not come out for hours. What are you really doing back there?"

"Why do you hate me so much?" Jemma deflected, Simone's proximity to uncovering her secret too great for her liking. "This isn't my fault. And believe it or not, I'm trying to help. All these years later you're still angry with a woman who's been dead all this time. What good is it doing you?"

Simone only looked at Jemma for several moments, an odd smile fleeting across her lips, before she strutted out of the room, heavy perfume snapping under Jemma's nose before dispersing in the air. When Jemma's breathing returned to normal, she looked down to find the bundle of calas crushed beneath her fingers. Placing it on the table—not wanting to throw it away in the kitchen, where Agnes surely was, Agnes with her uncomfortable stares, Agnes who'd pressed her lips against hers—Jemma headed out, and as she passed through the foyer, her eyes fell on the black telephone by the door.

She hadn't been in touch with anyone back in Chicago, not after that disastrous phone call with Marvin. She hadn't even called Betty, although she'd told her friend that she'd call and write. Jemma picked up the receiver; she thought of the expense of the call, but she dialed anyway.

The operator connected the call, and Jemma asked the person who answered the common phone on the second floor to get Betty in apartment 11.

"Hello?" came Betty's voice over the scratchy connection. Even though the call wasn't clear, Jemma relished the sound of her friend's voice.

"Betty. It's Jemma."

"Girl! So you are all right! I was worried about you. But I said they must be keeping you mighty busy down there for you not to call or write. How is the job? Are the people rich as you thought?"

Jemma looked around before answering, choosing her words carefully. "The job is fine. Yes, they've been keeping me busy."

When Betty didn't respond right away, Jemma wondered if the call had been disconnected, but after a moment, her friend asked, "You okay? You sound funny. It could be this connection, but—"

"I'm all right."

"Okay, if you say so. And, um, maybe I shouldn't say anything, but, shit, I've already said something, haven't I? I saw Marvin at Dominick's, him and that woman." Even through the distant connection, Betty's anger was clear. "She's showing." Another pause, which Jemma didn't fill. "You talked to him?"

The memory of that one phone call Jemma had made, her plea for help, flitted through her mind. She chased it away. "No."

"You thought about coming back?"

Jemma wanted to laugh. Of course she'd thought about going back, of going anywhere. "For what, Betty?"

"I don't know. To work things out."

Jemma's hand tightened on the phone, her face lifted to the ceiling. She took several deep breaths before returning to the conversation. "I have a job here." Such as it was.

"What about a man?"

"I don't have time for that right now." Even as she said it, she knew it wasn't something her friend would understand. Betty was one of those women who believed that having part of a man's attention was better than having none at all. She never would have attacked her husband, Jimmy, with a pool cue if she'd found him in a billiards hall with another woman. Or in her own bed, for that matter. "Even if I did, if I'd stayed with Marvin, I would've had to forgive him for what he did."

"Forgive and forget, they say. You could still do that."

"Girl, it's not always that easy."

Jemma was about to tell Betty that forgiveness wasn't always the balm her friend seemed to think it was, when something fluttered in the corner of her eye.

A woman drifted out of the kitchen, her long dress rough-hewn under an apron. Jemma could make out those details, as well as the kerchief wrapped around the woman's head. When she turned and looked at Jemma, despite her near transparency her features were apparent: full lips, wide nose, high cheekbones.

Five…four…three…

Vaguely, Jemma was aware of Betty's voice reaching over the line, her name coming at increasing decibels.

The ghost turned toward the back French doors, looked over her shoulder at Jemma once and then floated through them before stopping right outside.

"Betty," Jemma whispered, the phone receiver inches from her mouth, "I have to go. Here's my number, if you need to reach me." She read the digits written on a small card taped to the phone.

"Jemma? Jemma!"

Click.

Jemma shut her eyes and began counting again. Five…four…

"You all right?"

Barely suppressing a shriek, she opened her eyes to find Russell in front of her, one hand in his vest pocket, a cigarette dangling from the other.

"I'm fine."

"You don't look like it. Come on. Let's sit."

When he started toward the parlor, she reluctantly followed, averting her gaze from the back doors.

Was it her imagination, or had he glanced at the doors before leading her away?

Magdalene's words came back to her: If I met some poor haint who seemed lost and confused about why she was here instead of in heaven, why not help her get to where she needs to be ?

Maybe one of them got an answer for you .

The only answers Jemma wanted now were about her mother, which Honorine had promised her. She flopped into an armchair while Russell took the settee across from her, carefully smoothing his pant legs before fixing her with a stare.

"It's rude to stare at people," she said, realizing only at that moment how often the Duchons made her feel like a sideshow freak with the way they studied her, sometimes covertly but other times out in the open.

Russell chuckled, smashing his cigarette out in the crystal ashtray on the side table. "You're right, of course. I'm sorry. I guess I'm still getting used to your presence. It's been so long since we've seen a new face." With what appeared to be some effort, he looked toward the doorway before studying the room. Jemma knew he had to be intimately familiar with all four corners, just like the rest of the family who'd been trapped here. She wondered how soon she could leave without appearing impolite. Right now, she wanted nothing more than to shut herself in her room, forget about seeing Magdalene today if she had to go out the back, where that spirit might be waiting.

"My mother tried to break the curse, you know," he said, leaning back.

"She did?" Jemma's attention snapped to him.

"Yes. She thought because she's Inès's mother, that blood link was enough. That's what some medium told her, anyway. But it didn't work. My sister made sure that each of us would be punished."

"?‘Each of us'?"

"All the Duchons who were here when she cursed us. But you…How were you able to get away?"

"How should I know? I was just born when it happened."

"I didn't think they should've sent you away. It wasn't like Inès was the only woman in history to have a child out of wedlock. Maman and Papa were so worried about the scandal, but worse things have happened, no?"

"I suppose they have."

He leaned forward, animation lighting up his face. "Of course they have! If they'd let her marry who she wanted to marry, none of this would have happened. It's all so ridiculous, trying to arrange things that way."

"Was your marriage arranged?"

Russell's smile shrank, and with it his light, an expression that reminded Jemma of Honorine sliding into its place. "I loved Lenore very much."

Which wasn't at all an answer to what Jemma had asked.

"What else did the mediums tell your mother? And what did she do to try and break the curse?"

"I'm really not sure. All of that was years ago, when people were still willing to visit us." He waited a beat, and his voice dropped. "I am glad you're here, despite the circumstances. All these years, we wondered about you."

Jemma wanted to believe him. Unlike Simone, her uncle had never said or done anything hostile to her. If she could have another friend in this house, someone like Fosette, she'd feel more like she belonged.

"What was my mother like? Besides being beautiful, I mean."

Instead of his demeanor softening further, Russell's face closed, his lips pursing, the change shocking Jemma into silence. Hadn't he just implied that Inès wasn't the monster Honorine made her out to be? So why did he look like he'd just tasted something nasty?

He rose abruptly, looking out of the window, his back to Jemma. "She…was friendly. Never met a stranger, as they say."

When he grew quiet, Jemma reminded him, "But you said she was troubled. Because of the ghosts. Did you all think she was…crazy?" She rubbed her wrist.

"No more crazy than the rest of us," he murmured.

Unsure of what he meant but desperate to grab onto something that would help her, Jemma asked him, "Do you see them, too?"

She expected him to turn around and act ignorant, as if he had no idea what she was talking about. But he only continued staring out, his body unmoving.

"If it's ghosts you mean, no," he said in a flat voice.

"But…earlier…I thought I saw you looking at…I thought you saw something…"

He turned back to the room, his usual pleasant expression in place, and Jemma imagined the effort he expended to hold it there. He wasn't going to answer her, which was all the answer she needed. Maybe he couldn't see them as well as she could, as well as her mother had, but he seemed aware of their presence.

"If you just tell me, you could help me. That would help all of us."

"Jemma, I have no idea what you're talking about." Suddenly her uncle clapped his hands and headed to the doorway. "I could use another cup of coffee. Care to join me?"

A person could grow dizzy with the sudden turns conversation took around this place. Jemma shook her head. Russell shrugged, digging a box of Camels out of his vest as he exited. She waited a few moments before leaving the parlor, her eyes seeming to move of their own accord to the back doors.

No ghostly woman stood there.

Jemma exhaled slowly and then made her way out, toward Magdalene's. She knocked, although the door was never locked. Coming from Chicago, Jemma couldn't imagine such a thing. Getting no answer, she went around the back of the cabin, finding no sign of her friend, who was probably traipsing through the woods.

"Magdalene!" Jemma called, cupping her hands around her mouth, sending a flock of crows cawing into the air from a nearby tree, the sudden rustle of feathers surprising her as much as she'd startled them. "Magdalene!"

From a short distance away, Jemma heard, "Yah! Go on in."

She let herself into the shack through the open back door, inhaling the mixed scents of herbs and the remnants of a gamy meal. Probably rabbit, or maybe squirrel, as Magdalene hunted local animals for food. She'd offered a bit of squirrel to Jemma the last time she'd visited, which she'd turned down, her nose scrunched.

Jemma grabbed an empty pot and filled it with well water from outside before placing it on the woodstove and lighting a fire. Magdalene loved hot tea, no matter the season, but her pine needle tea and nettle tea were an acquired taste, so Jemma had declined after the first unpalatable cup. Magdalene liked reading tea leaves, although she admitted she wasn't that good at it.

Her friend came stomping in the back doors ten minutes later, a skinned animal slung over one shoulder.

"What the hell is that?" Jemma asked, her eyes following the woman with the bloody carcass draped over her shoulder the way other women wore fox stoles.

"It's a coon. You ever had coon meat?" At the look on Jemma's face, Magdalene let out a howl of laughter. "I can tell you ain't ever had it. I'll make up a stew. You might like it."

"No, thank you. I have to be back at the house for dinner anyway—you know that."

Magdalene humphed, moving to the counter and slapping the dead animal on it. She took a cleaver to it and, with the skill of a trained butcher, chopped it into pieces. Pointing with the cleaver to a basket in the corner, she told Jemma, "Chop up some of them taters for me, Emmaline."

Jemma was halfway out of her seat. "That's the second time you've called me that."

Magdalene ceased chopping, her head dropped and her shoulders slumped. "Damn," she whispered.

Jemma was fully prepared to badger the woman about why she'd called her by another name when Magdalene said, "It's your crib name. The name your mama gave you."

Jemma fell back in the chair. "Why didn't you tell me this before?"

"I don't try to think about all that. It happened a long time ago. Your mama is dead now. Ain't no point in trying to bring her back by talking about that old stuff."

"But how did you know that?"

"Inès told it to me, right after I handed you to her. She said that's the name she wanted you to have. That's the name we gave the Barkers, but I guess they wanted to change it."

Forgetting about the potatoes, Jemma wondered exactly why her parents had changed her name to Jemma. Would her life have been different if she'd been Emmaline? She knew the Duchons still wouldn't have kept her. Or maybe they would have, with that French-sounding name that eased its way into her ears. When she mouthed it, it tasted sweet, like a little pastry. She imagined being more beautiful if only the Barkers hadn't thrown that name away like the Duchons had tossed her out.

"Does the family know this?" Jemma asked.

Magdalene finished cutting up the animal and moved to grab a few potatoes, but Jemma took them from her and began cutting. As the older woman slid the meat into a pot and chopped up a sprouting onion, she continued. "Of course they know. They were there. Honorine and Simone were, anyway. They probably have your name written down in one of their Bibles or something."

"Written down?"

"Like a record of who's who. They're mighty proud of that family name. I'm sure they've got a list of their people going back all the way to slavery times."

Jemma could only imagine how that family tree would look, with cousins marrying cousins. She also wondered if the Duchons had actually kept her name in their records, or her mother's, for that matter.

"I wish I could've met her," Jemma said as she placed the potatoes in the bubbling pot and stood next to Magdalene at the counter.

"Your mama?"

Jemma nodded.

"Well, with all them ghosts walking around the place, she might be one of them. You ever tried to look for her?"

"No. They still scare me a little."

"Huh. It's the living you need to be scared of. Haints can't hurt you, but maybe they can tell you some things you want to know."

"I still don't know how to talk to them. Or where to even look for my mother."

Magdalene dumped the last of the onion and carrots into the pot and placed the cast-iron lid on it after checking on the fire in the belly of the stove. She wiped her bloody hands on a dishrag before tossing it into a pail in the corner. "Maybe you need to call her."

"How?"

"Hell, I don't know exactly, but I bet that family does. Word was, they used to have séances back in the day. I'd ask them if I was you."

A bitter laugh escaped Jemma. "You really think they're going to tell me how to contact my mother, who they can't stand?"

Magdalene put a hand on her hip and faced Jemma squarely. "Who said you gotta tell them who you're trying to talk to?"