Gilda Joyce: The Bones of the Holy (18 page)

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Authors: Jennifer Allison

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30
The Freedom Trail
To: MRS. RABIDO
From: GILDA JOYCE
RE: TRAVELOGUE ASSIGNMENT ENTRY #3
 
Dear Mrs. Rabido:
I hope you're doing well and managing to keep your spirits up during my absence.
What have I been doing, you ask? Where, pray tell, is my latest travelogue submission?
Sorry to keep you waiting, Mrs. Rabido, but I happen to be embroiled in a very perplexing mystery that seems to involve several ghosts, not to mention some very unnerving wedding plans. I mean, it's not as bad as an in-class essay, but it's no picnic either, just in case you're picturing me sipping piña coladas down here on the beach. In fact, I have not been to the beach a single time since my arrival (which I don't really mind because I burn really easily). However, you'll be happy to know that this evening I did have the opportunity to dine with an older gentleman named Bob Furbo who is a descendant of the colonial
St. Augustine settlers, loosely grouped as “the Minorcans.”
Tonight I learned that the lives of this community have been closely tied to the natural Florida landscape. For example, during the Depression years when hardly anybody had money to spend, Bob Furbo's family found plenty of fish, gopher tortoises, and sea turtle eggs to eat for free—right in their own backyard. “In fact,” Mr. Furbo noted, “when I was a kid, we'd sometimes catch a gopher tortoise and take it down to the grocery store to trade it for some bread and meat. And sometimes the guy behind the counter would give us back a smaller tortoise as change because he didn't have any money either.”
Well, Mrs. Rabido, after a life of struggles many old-timers like Mr. Furbo feel that they've paid their dues and don't want anyone telling them what to do or what to eat. For example, if you happen to catch one of them sneaking a handful of sea turtle eggs from the beach to eat raw, you'll know it's not so much a sign of disrespect for the law as it is a declaration of love for the slimy reptilian flavors of their hometown. Nevertheless, the law is the law, Mrs. Rabido, so don't let me catch you or any of your friends sneaking some turtle eggs into the teachers' lounge if you get a job down here!
 
THE FREEDOM TRAIL IN ST. AUGUSTINE:
Mrs. Rabido, my report would not be complete without some mention of the important Civil Rights struggles that have taken place here in St. Augustine. (In this section of my paper, I'll refrain from quoting Mr. Furbo. Let's just say that a handful of the old-timers have a way of reminding us both how far we've come and how far we have to go when it comes to viewing each other as equals.)
As I write this entry, we're driving past the atmospheric “Old Market” in the city, where people of all nationalities and colors are just sitting outside, playing chess, talking, or walking hand in hand to the restaurants. It's weird to think that there was actually a time when this same place was called “The Old Slave Market”—a place where people could actually be bought and sold like objects in a store.
It's also hard to imagine that back in the year 1964, Martin Luther King was arrested just for trying to enter a “whites only” restaurant right here in St. Augustine.
I think it's hard to imagine how scary and downright unpleasant it must have felt to walk into a restaurant and be asked to leave just because of a simple fact of your appearance. The only personal experience I can compare it to is one time when my family was asked to leave a fancy restaurant in Grosse Pointe because my dad wasn't wearing a dinner jacket. (We didn't realize the restaurant had a dress code.) Mind you, Mrs. Rabido, I'm not saying that this was anything even close to being the victim of racist laws in the Jim Crow South! I'm just saying that I remember the feeling of shame and anger we all had as we filed out of that place with all the other customers just staring at us. It made me want to throw eggs at the building (which Dad also wanted to do, but Mom wouldn't let us).
Mrs. Rabido, I guess we're lucky to live in a time when people are free to pursue their dreams and go anywhere they want in this country. But some of us are not completely free, Mrs. Rabido. I'm beginning to see how the ghosts of a painful past still drag their chains through a few of these old houses.
On that somber note, I am signing off and retreating to my boudoir, Mrs. Rabido!
Sleep tight; don't let the bedbugs bite!
GILDA JOYCE
31
The Message in the Dream
T
he rope tightened around Gilda's ankles as she descended headfirst into the open pit, flashlight in hand.
“Do you see it?”
“Not yet,” she said, feeling unsure what she was looking for.
“Grab it when you see it,” the voice said. “Grab it, and pull it out!”
Down she went, farther and farther underground. I can see it now, she thought; I can see the layers of history. Lizards and spiders scuttled around her, then came the generations of skeletons.
Some of the skeletons lay prone, holding crosses; others sat upright, as if buried sitting around a campfire. Then she glimpsed something smooth and gleaming—the shell of the endangered gopher tortoise.
How strange to find one burrowing so deep below the surface—even below the secret graves,
she thought.
“Grab it!” a faint voice shouted from above. “Grab it and kill it!”
“I can't,” she said. She didn't want to kill it.
“Give 'er here—we'll take care of it. Don't let 'er get away!” The voice now came from below. Gilda found herself looking down into the Furbos' kitchen, where she saw Mr. and Mrs. Furbo holding rifles. They stood on either side of the kitchen table, where they had placed the tortoise. “Give it a good whack on the back,” said Mr. Furbo. Gilda squeezed her eyes shut, not wanting to see.
“Help!” It was a woman's voice—a voice that sounded familiar.
“Finish the job,” said Mrs. Furbo.
Gilda opened her eyes just in time to see the Furbos backing away from the table. To her surprise, there was no tortoise. Instead, a young woman lay unconscious on the table, her long, white dress stained in blood. Gilda recognized her face: It matched the picture Mr. Furbo had shown her—the photograph of his daughter, Charlotte.
It's Charlotte,
Gilda thought.
And she's dead!
 
Gilda awoke with a start and immediately sat up in bed.
I have to write down everything I saw in the dream before I forget!
she thought. Gilda often picked up clues to her mysteries through images in her dreams, and she felt certain that this had been a psychic dream.
TO: GILDA JOYCE
FROM: GILDA JOYCE
RE: PSYCHIC DREAM REPORT
 
ALERT!!
NEW HYPOTHESIS FOLLOWING PSYCHIC DREAM!! IS IT POSSIBLE THAT CHARLOTTE FURBO IS DEAD?? IS IT POSSIBLE THAT THE FURBOS KILLED THEIR OWN DAUGHTER?!
 
The dream:
In my dream, I saw Mr. and Mrs. Furbo holding guns. They stared down at their daughter, Charlotte, who was lying on a table, apparently dead. She wore a bloodstained white dress.
When I awoke, I had two questions in my mind: 1) What if Charlotte never made it to Europe with her new boyfriend after all? 2) What if she was murdered?
The idea that the Furbos killed their own daughter is almost too awful to consider, but it's also true that the Furbos had a motive to kill Charlotte (albeit a disturbing one): They were furious with her for breaking off her engagement to Eugene right before the wedding. Maybe their racist feelings made the situation all the more volatile. On top of everything, they clearly have easy access to guns.
Of course, having a motive and owning a rifle doesn't necessarily mean they committed a crime, just as a psychic dream doesn't constitute hard evidence or proof. Still, it's a hypothesis that bears further investigation.
 
NEXT STEPS:
1. Find some hard evidence about Charlotte Furbo's whereabouts. Research needed.
2. Question the Furbos in more detail.
3. Ask Darla if she'll help me do a séance. I'm curious whether she would uncover anything about the Furbos in connection with the woman in white and Charlotte.
IS IT POSSIBLE THAT THE WOMAN IN WHITE IS THE GHOST OF CHARLOTTE FURBO?
32
Halloween Day
G
ilda had read somewhere that people in the old days wore masks and costumes on Halloween in order to trick evil spirits into leaving them alone. Given the hidden graveyards and other dark secrets around the neighborhood, Gilda figured she might need some protection before attempting a séance in St. Augustine, so she put on her Southern belle costume.
Once dressed in her corseted Civil War–era petticoats and wig with ringlets, Gilda felt safer for some reason, and newly determined to find out more about Charlotte Furbo and the woman in white.
Maybe Wendy can research the whereabouts of Charlotte Furbo on her computer. I need to verify whether she's actually alive or not. If she is alive, I definitely want to ask her some questions!
Of course, the research wouldn't be easy, since Gilda didn't even know what European city Charlotte was supposed to be in.
“I can't talk right now,” Wendy whispered. “I'm in the school library.”
“Already? It's not even seven thirty A.M.”
“Some of us attend school during the day.”
“But why are you in the library so early?”
“A little thing called a research paper. I'm doing my index cards.”
“Gotta love the index cards.” Gilda thought guiltily of the untouched index cards she had brought with her in her backpack. When she got home she would have to spend long hours in the library catching up on her research project. So far, she hadn't even settled on a topic.
“So how's the beach?”
“What beach?”
“Aren't you in Florida?”
“I've been working, Wendy. And I actually need your help with something. If you have a second to get on the computer, I need you to find anything you can about someone named Charlotte Furbo.”
Gilda explained the story of how Charlotte left Eugene for another man and then supposedly moved to Europe. “But I now have a theory that Charlotte might have been murdered instead,” she said.
Gilda told Wendy about the ghostly woman in white whom she and Darla had seen, and the dream about Mr. and Mrs. Furbo standing next to their daughter's dead body.
“I promise I'll check it out as soon as I have a chance, but I gotta go now,” Wendy whispered. “Ms. Zucconi is looking at me, and she's going to take away my phone any second now; I'll send you a message later, okay?”
“Wait—Wendy?”
“What?”
“Happy Halloween. I'm wearing the Southern-belle costume, just so you know.”
“Happy Halloween, Gilda. I'm not wearing any costume, and I'm hanging up now.”
 
Mrs. Joyce stood in the middle of the kitchen, staring into space. She had walked into the room several minutes before, but couldn't remember what she had been doing.
“Patty-Cakes?”
Startled, Mrs. Joyce came to her senses. She turned to see Eugene standing in the kitchen doorway, staring at her with a worried expression.
“I've been sitting out there in the car waiting for you,” said Eugene. “Are you okay?”
“You were waiting for me?”
“Remember? We have to pick up Stephen at the airport! And then we have our final wedding preparations.”
“Oh—I guess I forgot what I was doing.” Mrs. Joyce walked unsteadily to the sink and poured herself a glass of cold water. She couldn't for the life of her remember what she had been doing in the kitchen—why she had come into the room in the first place.
“You look beautiful in that dress,” said Eugene, admiring the vintage outfit he had selected from his collection for her to wear.
“Thank you.” Mrs. Joyce liked the dress, but it also made her feel strange, as if she were wearing someone else's clothes.
I don't feel at all like myself today,
she thought. Normally she would have dismissed the feeling as a result of sleep deprivation or stress, but she was suddenly disturbed by her inability to account for small windows of time ever since she had arrived in St. Augustine. What was causing her to feel so spacey?
Eugene seemed unconcerned about the little spells when she described her “time lapses.” “Oh, that's normal,” he said. “It's just wedding jitters since this is all happening so fast.”
She hoped he was right. At any rate, she scarcely had time to think about it; they needed to hurry to the airport to fetch Stephen, after which they would make flower arrangements and attend to a flurry of other last-minute details. For some reason, it was a little frightening to think that she would actually be married in a matter of hours.
33
The Pendulum Speaks
D
arla answered the door dressed in a butterfly costume with large, silver wings and bouncing wire antennae decorated with tinsel pom-poms. The wings and antennae looked carelessly incongruous paired with her wrinkled T-shirt and plaid shorts.
“Nice costume,” said Gilda.
“Thanks; I like your wig,” said Darla. “But just so you know, we aren't handing out our candy yet. In this neighborhood, people usually go trick-or-treating at night—or at least after school—”
“I'm not here for candy, Darla!” Gilda lowered her voice to a whisper. “I'm here because I think I know who the woman in white might be, and I need your help to find out if I'm right.”

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