Beneath the Black Moon (Root Sisters) (7 page)

No
one had told Hattie about those deaths. She didn’t know the names of the
victims or their families. But she had described to Brent, in perfect detail,
the shape of Katherine’s face. She had described the man Brent now knew to be
Sam. She had spoken of Solange’s dark eyes and rich smile as though she had
known the woman— but she hadn’t. She hadn’t known any of them, and yet her
descriptions had been so vivid that when Brent had first laid eyes on Camilla
Johnson he had known immediately that she was kin to the woman Hattie described
to him.

That
had been last month. The past few weeks Hattie hadn’t been lucid enough to say
anything. She babbled incoherently for hours, pausing occasionally to scream as
though she was in terrible pain, but she hadn’t spoken her husband’s name in
over three weeks.

It
was killing John. John and Hattie had been sweethearts since they were
thirteen, but her parents hadn’t consented to their marriage until last year. Now
John was losing her, and Brent could see it tearing him apart. He worried what
would be left of his devoted, mild-mannered older brother when Hattie finally
died.

Brent
still wasn’t certain what the connection between Hattie, Katherine, Sam and Solange
was, but he did know that there was something eerie about Hattie’s suffering,
something not quite right. He also knew that the Johnson girls were hiding
something, something that frightened them all. He was out of his element, but
it didn’t matter to him. John loved Hattie dearly, with the kind all-consuming
adoration that Brent had never experienced and never expected to. If he could
spare his brother the agony of losing Hattie he would, no matter what stood in
his way.

The
stairs creaked as Brent climbed to Hattie’s room. He paused outside of his
Great Aunt Julia’s door. Her condition had also worsened since their move to
Mississippi. Julia was their grandmother’s sister, a kindly if rather forgetful
old woman well into her seventies. John and Brent hadn’t known her when they
were children, but she had come to live with them last year after her sister
died. John had been busy, between marrying Hattie and purchasing the
plantation, so Brent had taken the time to get the old woman settled. She had
been very grateful and it was a shame to see her doing so badly.

Brent
listened outside of his aunt’s door, waiting until he could distinguish the
sound of her soft breathing. Good. She seemed to be sleeping peacefully
tonight. He moved on and approached Hattie’s door with dread slowly building in
his chest. Hattie rarely slept peacefully these days. He could hear her moaning
as he drew closer, and when he opened the door to check on her she was curled
into a ball on her side, gripping the blankets. His brother John was slumped in
a chair by her bedside. He must have fallen asleep while watching over her.
Even in slumber there were deep lines cut into his brow, making him look almost
as agonized as Hattie.

Brent
sighed quietly and slipped out of the room, closing the door behind him. John
had many admirable qualities, but he wasn’t a fighter and he didn’t handle
crisis well. He was floundering and in his helplessness he looked to his
brother for guidance.

Brent
squared his shoulders as he walked down the hall. John may have felt helpless,
but Brent certainly didn’t. He didn’t yet know what was causing Hattie’s
illness, but he knew how to find out. He had caught a scent. He knew who his
target was, and Cam Johnson would have to be very wily indeed to escape him.

“Is
that your third?” Aunt Beth frowned. “Diana, do you really require a third
griddlecake?”

Diana
smiled up at her Aunt, batting her lashes in a way that was almost reminiscent
of Marianne, but all Cam saw was a snake, coiling to strike. “Why Aunt Beth,
how thoughtless of me. I don’t want to spill out of my corset. That might ruin
my
prospects
.” She turned to Cam, thoughtfully. “Do nunneries
accept
thick-waisted women?”

 
“Diana,” their father said sharply from the head of the table. “That’s quite
enough. Your Aunt is only thinking of you.”

“You’re
right, father,” Diana said, standing and dropping her napkin in her chair.
“That
is
enough.” She turned on her heel and stalked out of the room.

Aunt
Beth stared after her niece wearily. “Twenty-three.” She said. “Twenty-three
years old and she doesn’t act a day over thirteen.”

“Good
morning!” Helen greeted them as she wandered into the dining room. There was a
twig caught in her chignon and she looked pink-cheeked and happy. She sat down
and quickly helped herself to a biscuit.

“And
where have you been?” Their father asked, eying his youngest daughter.

“For
a walk,” Helen said breezily.

“Meeting
someone?” Cam teased, and then nearly bit her own tongue at the look on her
father’s face. ‘That is a joke, father.”

“No
it is not,” he snapped back. “Not really. Helen, fix your hair.”

“Helen,”
their aunt said gently as Helen patted her hair, searching for the offending
twig, “a lady leaves the table to fix her hair. Very good dear.” She said when
Helen excused herself to find a mirror. “What are your plans for today,
Camilla?”

“Cam?”
Their father paused with a sausage halfway to his mouth. “That’s one daughter I
needn’t worry about. There’s a limit to how much trouble she can cause
cloistered in the kitchen, after all.” He laughed at the thought.

“You
never know, father,” Cam said, pushing away her plate and standing up. “I might
elope with a sack of potatoes.” She kissed his cheek and started for the door.

Her
father laughed appreciatively, and then paused. “You’re putting on your bonnet.
Why are you putting on your bonnet to go to the kitchen? Are you going out?” He
sounded alarmed.

“I’m
visiting the poor today,”
among other things
, Cam added silently, but
when it came to her father, the best policy was to give him as little
information as possible. She pulled on her gloves, hoping that he wouldn’t
argue.

“Today
Cam? But we have a visitor today.” Aunt Beth protested.

“Really?”
Cam said with surprise, as though she hadn’t planned it this way on purpose.
“How unfortunate.”

“Indeed,”
Aunt Beth said suspiciously.

“You’re
not going alone?” Mr. Johnson moved as if to stand, and for a panicked second
Cam thought that he was about to volunteer to accompany her. Then again, that
would be very out of character for her father. He had never shown the faintest
interest in the plight of the poor.

“No,”
Cam answered quickly. “I’m not going alone. Mary will accompany me, as usual.”

“Very
well.” Her father agreed finally, with some deliberation. “You’re not to go
anywhere without her, do you understand?”

“Yes
father, I never do.” Cam said, and tried not to wince at how easily the lie
slipped off her tongue. Sometimes her own capacity for deceit frightened her.

Mary
was waiting outside on the lawn in a simple calico dress. Her hair was neatly
braided and she carried two baskets of food, one over each arm. A silver coin
glimmered at the hollow of throat, where it was secured by a simple ribbon. The
coin was a protective charm. Cam had one of her own, but since Aunt Beth would
have frowned upon her wearing around her neck the way that Mary did, Cam had
slipped hers into her basque and wore it over her heart.

They
traveled in silence for a moment, Cam walking ahead with her chin firmly tilted
up, seemingly ignoring Mary, who trailed behind. They made a perfectly
respectable picture, a young lady out to visit the poor with her dutiful maid following
behind her. When they reached the property line and were out of sight of the
house, a transformation came over them. Cam slowed and Mary strode forward so
that they walked side by side, and Mary relinquished one of the baskets to Cam.
“My aunt needs more herbs,” she said quietly, as Cam glanced around to make
sure that they were definitely alone in this corner of the forest.

“That’s
fine. You can gather them and I can visit the Charmon and Haskell families
alone,” Cam said.

“Not
just the Charmons,” Mary said, “there’s also Mattie Devereux. One of us needs
to visit her. She might need…” Mary’s voice trailed into a whisper. There were
some things that best remained unspoken.

“I
can visit Mattie,” Cam said. “She’s closer to the Charmons and the Haskells. If
you’re going for herbs, why don’t you take that basket to the Wilkinsons? I’ll
stop for graveyard dirt on my way home.”

“I’ll
meet you by the big tree,” Mary said. The big tree was an enormous, ancient oak
that she and Cam had played around as children. “We have to return to the house
together. If your Aunt Beth finds out about you wandering around alone, she’ll
probably faint.”

“I
suppose it’s good that she doesn’t usually socialize with the Charmons,” Cam
said, “If they told her that I’ve been visiting them alone for years, she’d
skip fainting altogether and just
die
.”

“Probably,”
Mary agreed seriously as they parted ways.

***

Mrs.
Charmon’s living children ranged from twenty year old Ben, who had left home
almost four years ago and hadn’t been heard from since, to the infant Ellie,
who had developed a persistent and concerning fever. Cam had witnessed three Charmon
children die already, and her more selfish half didn’t want to keep visiting
the Charmons, for fear that soon enough she would have to watch little Ellie
pass away as well. It was a cowardly impulse and Cam refused to submit to it,
but she couldn’t deny the trepidation that welled up in her every time she
approached the little shanty in the forest where the Charmons made their home.
Every time she caught sight of the house, there was a moment when she braced
herself to hear Mrs. Charmon’s grief-stricken wails. Every morning it occurred
to her that perhaps today death would call again on the Charmon residence.

In
that respect at least Cam’s family had been unusually fortunate. The potent
combination of the rootwork of both Caro and Cam’s grandmother kept most
illnesses at bay, even if it couldn’t ward off tragedy entirely. So many women
lost their small children, but all of Solange’s daughters had grown up strong
and sound.

The
dusty, greasy curtains that hung in the single window of the Charmon hovel
twitched, and Cam caught sight of a bright young face peering out at her.
Theodore
.
Cam smiled, and when the little boy’s face split into an answering grin, she
felt her breathing return to normal. No tragedies at the Charmon residence
today.

All
was not quiet, though. Cam could hear the baby wailing and Mrs. Charmon
shouting at her brood. “Teddy! Where in the blazes is that boy goin’?”

“Miss
Cam is heeeeereeeeeee!”  Teddy shrieked back at his mother as he came tearing
out of the house to see her. From across the clearing where the Charmon family
squatted, two more of the Charmon children heard Teddy’s announcement and came
running: towheaded William and his sister Lydia, with her serious gray eyes and
long braids.

Lydia
was the oldest and she reached Cam first, though she hung back for a minute to
admire Cam’s simple dress. “That’s awful pretty,” she said, winding the end of
one of her skinny braids around her finger as she spoke. “I sure like your
dress.”

“Thank
you,” Cam said. Lydia was ten, and she was so interested in clothes that Cam
was sometimes tempted to introduce her to Aunt Beth. Despite the difference in
age and class, Cam suspected that the two had more in common than Cam had ever shared
with her aunt.

“What
did you bring?” William asked as he slid to a halt in front of Cam. He was
barefoot and wasn’t wearing a shirt under his suspenders. He clutched a
homemade fishing rod in one hand and reached eagerly for the basket with his
other hand. Little Theodore ran up behind his brother and tried to fight past
his older siblings to reach Cam, but couldn’t get either of them to budge.

“You
three, stop mauling Miss Johnson!” Mrs. Charmon appeared in the doorway. She
was a tall, middle aged woman, wide-hipped and nearly shapeless after giving
birth to one child after another. Despite the toll her hardships had taken on
her appearance, there was something appealing about her round, open face. When she
smiled a certain way Cam could picture her as the pretty young woman that she
had once been. Mrs. Charmon gave one of those rare smiles just then, when she
caught sight of the basket of food that Cam carried.

She
and the children were excitedly examining the contents of Cam’s basket when a
cheerful yell announced the arrival of yet another of the Charmon children.
James Charmon was twelve or thirteen, and he carried himself like the man of
the house.

“And
just where in the hell have you been?” Mrs. Charmon asked, eying her son
critically. “Begging your pardon, Miss Johnson,” she added to Cam. Cam waved
the woman’s apology away and was just about to hand a jar of preserves to Lydia
when she sensed movement in the bushes on the side of the clearing. She could
feel her own jaw drop as Brent Anderson emerged from the forest behind James.
He looked even more devastatingly handsome than he had the night before, which
was saying something. Gone was his dress coat from last night. In fact, he
wasn’t wearing a coat at all, only a loose white linen shirt over black
trousers that were tucked into black riding boots. He casually carried a rifle
over one shoulder, and his golden hair was slightly mussed. Cam swallowed,
resisted the urge to stare at the perfect tan skin that was exposed at the base
of his throat where he had failed to button the top two buttons. Instead she
looked away, hoping to pretend that she wasn’t in the least affected by his
presence. It wasn’t at all appropriate, meeting a man who was practically a
stranger while unchaperoned, and if he had even a shred of common decency he
would decline to acknowledge her, and they could both go on with their day and
forget that they had ever encountered each other.