The Lost Hours (9 page)

Odella walked briskly into the room, her soft-soled nurse’s shoes squeaking on the heart pine floor. She was about fifteen years older than Helen and just as thin, but her parchmentlike skin and graying hair made her appear years older. She’d been married and widowed three times and raised eight children, which probably accounted for the weary expression she normally wore. But there was no finer cook in the entire Lowcountry than Odella Pruitt and no softer heart, although she did her best to hide it behind a tart tongue and salty attitude, neither of which Lillian minded. It was a small price to pay for excellent food and a firm hand to help Lillian’s increasingly feeble body.

“Food’s ready and it’s not going to eat itself,” announced Odella as she gently grasped Lillian’s elbow and helped her out of her chair. “Girls, grab hold of your aunt Helen and take her to the dining room, would you please? Don’t want her knocking anything over. Got enough to do as it is without having to clean up extra messes.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the girls said in unison, their eyes wide. They hadn’t yet discovered the secret that was Odella Pruitt, and that was fine with Odella. Because once they realized what a pushover she really was, they’d have her wrapped around their small fingers.

“I’ll be careful, Odella,” said Helen with a deceptively meek voice. “You know how clumsy I can be.” This made Lillian grin since Helen moved with the grace of a ballet dancer, and except for that first desperate year of Helen’s blindness, she’d never knocked over a single thing.

But Lillian’s smile quickly faded as she heard the first rumble of thunder. She grasped at the gold charm dangling from her neck and allowed herself to be led into the dining room. She kept her eyes focused in front of her and tried not to shudder with each flash of lightning that seemed to throw light into the forgotten corners of her memory, illuminating things she didn’t want to see.

The handheld GPS that I’d stuck to the inside of the windshield in my grandfather’s Buick had long since announced that I was “off-road,” apparently in a place where even satellites couldn’t find me, my destination unknown.

I paused on the old gravel road, knowing from the blank map on the GPS screen that the Savannah River was somewhere to my right and a large golf course was on my left. But somewhere, in the vast dark space on the screen, lay Asphodel Meadows, once the queen of the Savannah River rice plantations, but now operating solely as a horse farm and private residence, its land devoured by development and the encroaching river, its rice beds now a golf course.

Just when I thought I should turn around, I spotted the small marker tucked into the brush on the side of the road announcing my arrival at Asphodel Meadows. It was a brown National Trust sign, but it was hidden so well that I was left to believe that someone had done it intentionally.

As soon as I turned onto the road, I smelled the horses. Not the horses exactly, but their associated smells of cut grass, hay, and leather. Despite the heat, I turned off the air conditioner, trying to block the scent that never failed to rip through me with equal parts exhilaration and terror. I began to sweat in the stifling interior as the gravel crunched under the slowly rotating tires as I followed the drive to where it seemed to stop abruptly, disappearing into a steep green embankment. Finding it hard to breathe, I lowered the windows, hoping to find sight of the road.

To the right of the Buick, at a sharp angle, I spotted the continuation of the road as well as the turnoff I must have missed while staring straight ahead in the hopes of avoiding any sight of pastures. Gripping the wheel tightly, I angled the car and turned, finding myself suddenly enveloped in the canopy of an ancient live oak alley. I stopped the car, looking at the old trees that barely resembled the live oaks of Savannah’s squares despite the generous shawls of Spanish moss. These trees were darkened and withered, despite enough leaves to show that they were alive. But the limbs were bent and gnarled, the knobs at the forks like the bent shoulders of mourners at a funeral.

Gulping the stagnant, humid air, I caught the scent of the river, too, and continued to drive forward through the short line of hulking oak trees toward the cream-colored columned house beckoning me at the end.

When I reached the circular drive in front of the house, I released my hands on the wheel and wiped my sweaty palms on my white linen pants, then dug into the side pocket of the door for a fast-food napkin to wipe my face. I sat there for a long time, pressing the napkin to my face and listening to my heart pound while I stared at the house in front of me.

The house wasn’t the typical antebellum Greek Revival architecture found in my history books of the Savannah River plantations. Instead, it had been built in the English Regency style, with a raised first floor, flat roof, and twin sandstone staircases flanking the lower entrance. The steps rose to the front porch with its four Doric columns standing sentry to the double front doors. It would have been beautiful if not for the odd alley of grieving oaks that led to the house.

There was something else, too, that shimmered in the air here along with the humidity and the foreboding trees at my back. It wasn’t neglect, exactly, or even the darkness that seemed to emanate from the oak alley despite the bright summer sun. It had more to do with the absence of light. I didn’t believe in ghosts, but I did believe that this house could be haunted by its own past, its sorrows weeping shadows down the sandstone bricks and columns.

The saving grace was the front garden. I recognized the smilax and the lantana, and the fragrant tea olives that had once, long ago, decorated my grandmother’s Savannah house. But whereas this garden oasis was neatly laid out with pristine edges and formed shapes, I recalled how the lantana in my grandmother’s back garden had been allowed to grow unchecked until it started poking through the window screens. I couldn’t imagine anything in this garden being allowed to grow beyond its boundaries. I pressed my hand to my face, the sweet, verdant smell now seeming more cloying than fragrant in the heat of the still summer afternoon.

“Hello, there.”

The voice came from the top of the steps and I had to exit the car to be able to get a better view. I shielded my eyes from the sun with my hand and looked up. A beautiful woman with long, wavy dark hair who appeared to be in her midthirties stood with graceful hands folded on the sandstone balustrade. She was looking over my head toward the oaks as she spoke, and for a moment I thought the woman was addressing another visitor.

“Hello. I’m . . . Earlene Smith. I’m renting the caretaker’s cottage for a few months. I was told to come to the main house to get the key from Helen Gibbons.”

The woman smiled, illuminating her face. “I’m Helen—I spoke with you on the phone. Did you find us all right? Why don’t you come on up for some sweet tea and we can sit for a while and get acquainted before I get the key for you?”

Feeling as if the oaks were watching me from behind, I began to climb the steps toward Helen, trying not to wince at the stiffness in my knee and back, and noticing the yellow silk chiffon dress Helen wore that seemed more appropriate at a morning wedding than spending an afternoon at home.

When I reached the top, I extended my hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Helen. And thank you for being able to accommodate me on such short notice.”

Helen’s hand remained at her side, but she continued smiling, her eyes focused on my forehead. “Did you notice our trees? They spook people the first time they see them. I suppose that’s one of the reasons Malily hasn’t opened Asphodel Meadows to the public.”

I let my hand drop, scrutinizing the other woman closely, wondering what it was that seemed to be missing. Reluctantly, I followed Helen’s gaze toward the trees. “I’ve never seen live oaks like that.”

“They are unique, aren’t they?” she said, not quite smiling. “There used to be forty-eight of them. My great-great-grandfather and his generation called them the ‘old gentlemen.’They had quite the reputation as being the longest and most beautiful oak alley in the South.”

I tried to imagine it, but couldn’t. “What happened?”

Her eyes reflected the sky and the trees as she spoke. “When they dammed the river a few decades back they changed its course and Asphodel lost quite a bit of property—and thirty-two trees. Men came and chopped those old trees down, then hauled them down the river on barges. My mama has a desk that was made from the wood from one of those trees, but it gives her bad dreams after she’s spent any time working on it. We were compensated for it, of course, but the remaining oaks didn’t take too kindly to the assault. Overnight they changed to how you see them now—like old men.”

I shuddered and faced Helen again. “Do they know what caused it?”

Helen shrugged, her gaze focused again on my forehead. “They said the trauma of the earth-moving equipment and superficial damage to the roots caused by the removal of the other trees somehow disturbed the roots of the remaining ones.” She crossed her arms and tilted her chin up. “Of course, there are those who don’t believe that version of the story at all.”

I was about to ask her what she meant when Helen extended her hand in the direction of the open front door. “You’re limping, so you must be wanting to sit down. Why don’t we go on inside?”

I had a sharp retort on my tongue when I noticed the long, slim metal cane Helen held in her left hand. My gaze jerked quickly up to Helen’s eyes and I saw then what I’d been looking for earlier. Eyes the color of the marsh stared out at the world without focus or light, as if a curtain had been drawn across them. But there was something in the way Helen’s gaze flitted about her surroundings, as if she saw something entirely different from everyone else and that what she saw might even be better.

I cleared my throat and nodded, then added hastily, “Sure. Thank you,” and followed Helen into the house.

The foyer soared over two stories, with a curving staircase climbing along the outer wall, decorated by the frowning stares of painted ancestors. I wondered if they’d all been smiling at one time until the oaks had been removed and like the remaining “old gentlemen” had turned to grieving for eternity.

As I followed Helen toward the back of the house, I was vaguely aware of marble floors and dark paneling, crystal chandeliers and oil paintings of horses and jockeys. Tall windows marched across the top and bottom floors of the house, yet heavy shadows sat like furniture against the walls as we passed darkened rooms, heavy draperies covering up all light.

Helen led me into a formal parlor of high ceilings and intricate moldings with an antique piano in one corner and an ornate armoire in the other. Two sofas faced each other, flanking an empty fireplace, a mottled antique mirror hanging above the mantle. Dark wood plantation shutters were closed, allowing little sunlight to creep around the edges to chase away the shadows. Despite the elegance of the room and its furnishings, I felt the same uneasiness I’d felt outside, like a strong wind would bring with it the scent of rain.

After leaning her cane against the armoire, Helen asked,“What can I get you? We have sweet tea and homemade lemonade. Or I can fix you something stronger, if you prefer. As my brother,Tucker, is fond of saying, it’s always five o’clock somewhere.”

“Sweet tea would be fine. Thank you.”

I watched as Helen deftly handled the decanters and glasses, neatly replacing the lid on the ice bucket after dropping several cubes into two tall crystal goblets. Then she unstoppered a ship’s decanter filled with red liquid and poured it into a small glass until it was almost up to the top. She picked up my glass and held it up for me to take before picking up her own.

“Why don’t you have a seat and rest a bit? My grandmother—I call her Malily but her real name is Lillian—will probably join us in a moment. She can smell her sherry like a shark can scent blood in the water.”

I accepted the glass with a murmur of thanks, trying to disguise the sudden rush of adrenaline I’d felt with the mention of Lillian’s name. I sat down in an overstuffed wing chair by the piano and immediately felt something soft bump my hand. Startled, I looked down at the large yellow Lab, whose nap I had apparently disturbed. He bumped my hand again and I obliged by scratching him behind his ear.

“That’s Mardi,” said Helen, elegantly folding herself into an identical chair opposite. “He likes to think he’s my Seeing Eye dog, so we just humor him. He’s a real marshmallow. He’s also, as you can see, a real watchdog, always alerting us to the presence of strangers.” She took a sip of her tea, then raised her brows. “And you both have something in common—he’s afraid of horses, too.”

I stared hard at her, but Helen’s face was open and her expression without malice. “Well, then,” I said carefully,“we should get along just fine.”

“Full use of the stables is included in your rental agreement, you know. That’s why most people who rent it choose to come here in the summer instead of the beach. I don’t suppose you’ll be utilizing the stables, though.”