Gilda Joyce: The Bones of the Holy (25 page)

Darla opened her purse and pulled out her cell phone. With any luck there would be some text messages to distract her. But before she could check her in-box, her mother grabbed her wrist.

“Not at a wedding!” Mary Louise hissed.

Now the weight on Darla's chest felt heavier—the air thicker.
Calm down,
she told herself.
Don't panic!
She took deep breaths and placed her elbows on her knees, struggling to gain control of her breathing.

Suddenly a strange picture entered Darla's mind—an image of Gilda trapped inside a box, deep beneath the ground. A place with no air.
Something happened to Gilda in Mr. Pook's house,
Darla realized
. She's in danger.

Help!
the woman in white seemed to whisper to her.
Help!

Darla turned around. Charlotte's ghost was still there, and she was pointing toward something she wanted Darla to see.

She's pointing in the direction of Mr. Pook's house,
Darla thought.

Follow me,
the ghost seemed to say.
Hurry!

It would only take her a few minutes to get to Mr. Pook's house if she ran. “Mom,” Darla whispered breathlessly, “I'll be back in a minute.”

“Wait! Where are you going?”

“I forgot I'm supposed to help Gilda with something before the wedding!”

Before her mother could stop her, Darla raced across the grass, toward Mr. Pook's house on Water Street.

W
hen Darla reached Mr. Pook's house, she stood frozen on the sidewalk outside his garden gate. The memory of skeletons moving inside the house paralyzed her.

Help.
The ghost did not speak the word, but Darla somehow heard it in her mind.
HELP.
Again she saw the image of Gilda trapped inside the house.

Feeling as if she were walking into a burning building, Darla took a deep breath and forced herself to walk up the path, across the front porch, and through the unlocked front door.

Inside, the house was silent. The only sound was the
tick, tock
of the grandfather clock.
Guardian angel, please protect me,
Darla whispered to herself as she glimpsed her reflection in the eye-shaped mirror upon the wall. So far, so good. No bones wriggling on the floor. But she had the terrible feeling that something might jump out at her at any moment.

Suddenly Darla saw a bright spot floating just above the kitchen floor—an orb that gradually took the shape of the woman in white. As she drew closer, Darla saw the bright purple-red flower that decorated her white gown—a flower that turned into a bloodstain.

The ghost pointed to the words etched in dust on a chalkboard:

“But how can I look under the floor?” Darla asked aloud.

“Hello?” a weak, muffled voice came from under the floorboards.

Darla caught her breath. “Who's there?” Her voice came out as a squeak.

“Hey! Is somebody up there?”

It was Gilda's voice. Darla exhaled, feeling relieved. “Gilda! It's me—Darla! Where are you?”

“We're down here—just hanging out under the kitchen.”

“What are you doing down there?”

“It's nice down here if you don't like breathing.”

“Hey!” It was a teenage boy's voice. “Can you get us out of here? We're running out of air!”

“How do I get you out?”

“I'll knock on the floor where the trapdoor is,” said Stephen. “Hear that? It's hard to see where you need to lift, but you just have to use your fingernails to pry up a piece of wood, and then there's a hidden handle.”

Darla struggled to quell a rising sense of panic as she thought of Gilda and her brother running out of air. “There's a problem here,” she said, “a big armoire is in the middle of the floor—probably right over the trapdoor. I'm not sure I can move it.”

Down in the cistern, Stephen covered his face in his hands. “I forgot about that,” he said glumly. “She'll never be able to move it by herself.”

Darla pressed her palms against the heavy armoire that Eugene had dragged over the trapdoor. She leaned all her weight against it, but it scarcely budged.

“I think I need to go back and get some help!” Darla shouted.
What if I can't open it in time?!
she worried. “I'm not very good at stuff like this . . .”

But as Darla attempted to lean against the armoire once more, she sensed that she was not alone. She now felt as if the woman in white, the broken soldiers, the Indian villagers—all the ghosts of the house were there by her side to help her. She did not fear them; she told herself that these were the spirits of ancestors who had come to her side to help her because only she could see and hear them. With the strength of several poltergeists, Darla gave the armoire a final shove and it miraculously moved across the room.

Moving her hands across the floor, Darla carefully searched for the piece of irregular wood that concealed the cistern.

A long, anxious minute later, she peered down into the darkness. She saw Gilda and Stephen huddled together, leaning against one of the coquina stone walls. Exhausted and partly hidden in the darkness, they looked very small to her—more like young, frightened children than teenagers—as they shielded their eyes from the sudden light.

“Thank God,” said Stephen, rising to his feet and taking in deep, relieved breaths of air.

“Totally awesome job, Darla!” Gilda declared, her voice a hoarse croak. Her brave words belied the exhausted tears that rolled down her cheeks.

T
he problem,” said the priest, “is that we've got another wedding scheduled right after yours. I'm sorry, but we can't wait any longer.”

Mrs. Joyce scanned her surroundings, looking for some sign of Gilda and Stephen.

“It's okay, Patty.” Eugene put his arm around her protectively. Finally he was having the wedding day he should have had twenty years ago.
This time, nothing is going to spoil it,
he told himself.
This time, I'm in control.

The guitarist shot the priest an impatient look. The musicians had finished their repertoire of prelude music and had begun repeating the same pieces.

Shifting in their seats, the sparse group of guests observed the wedding couple with growing anticipation.

“Someone's got cold feet,” Mrs. Furbo muttered.

“I
told
him, ‘Don't pick another one like Charlotte,'” Mr. Furbo said.

Sitting behind the Furbos, Captain Jack extended his legs and arms in a giant stretch, and then folded his arms across his chest as if preparing for a nap in the sun. He had slightly altered his pirate attire for the occasion of the wedding, choosing a clean T-shirt instead of the gold necklaces and sleeveless, torn shirts that revealed his shoulder-to-wrist tattoos.

As he gazed out at the bay, something very interesting caught his attention: The same gopher tortoise he had spotted a couple days ago lumbered slowly toward the wedding party, pausing to chew blades of grass along the way. Captain Jack observed the animal with a sleepy smile.

Mrs. Furbo also saw the tortoise, but she watched it through her spectacles with the fierce stare of a hawk who has just spied a tasty rabbit on the ground below.

Having determined that they could not wait any longer, the priest nodded to the musicians and walked toward the rustic altar followed by Eugene and Mrs. Joyce, who walked arm-in-arm.

“Dearly beloved,” said the priest, “we are gathered here today to join Patricia Joyce and Eugene Horace Pook in holy matrimony. We are especially honored to gather here in the very spot on the Matanzas Bay where, more than four hundred years ago, Spanish colonists said the first Catholic Mass on North American soil. Lord, we ask your blessings on this couple and on the children of this new family, who—er—appear to be absent for the moment, but are very much in our hearts and minds.”

The gopher tortoise now grazed only a foot away from Mrs. Furbo, completely oblivious to the attack that was about to take place. With a sudden motion, Mrs. Furbo leaned down as if stooping to retrieve a dropped earring and swiftly contained the animal inside her large, cloth handbag—an oversize purse that covered the animal so perfectly that it might have been created explicitly for tortoise catching. Now holding the heavy gopher tortoise in her bag, Mrs. Furbo turned her eyes back to the priest, who was speaking of the shrine of Our Lady of La Leche and the sanctity of marriage.

Captain Jack tapped Mrs. Furbo on the shoulder. “I saw you put that gopher in your bag,” he whispered.

“Never you mind,” she hissed back.

“That's against the law, ma'am.” Captain Jack moved his chair closer, so he was now only a few inches behind Mrs. Furbo.

“Are you a police officer?” Mrs. Furbo kept her eyes on the priest.

“No,” said Captain Jack. “I'm a pirate.” With a motion every bit as swift and surprising as Mrs. Furbo's attack on the gopher tortoise, Captain Jack seized Mrs. Furbo's handbag. Unfortunately for him, Mrs. Furbo had a surprisingly strong grip on her purse, and the two of them became stuck in an absurd tug-of-war.

Noticing the fight, Evelyn just stared, open-mouthed, and Debbie clapped her hand over her mouth to stifle giggles at the bizarre sight of Captain Jack snatching an elderly woman's purse during a wedding ceremony. Now feeling the priest's eyes on him, Captain Jack gave up and sank back into his seat.

The priest cleared his throat before continuing. “And now,” he said, “tradition commands me to raise the question to the friends and relations who have gathered here in support of Eugene and Patty: Is there any one among you who knows
any
reason why these two should not be wed? If so, speak now, or forever hold your peace.”

The priest looked out at the faces of the unusually distracted guests: Captain Jack glared at the back of Mrs. Furbo's head; the Furbos both peered down into the handbag; Mary Louise glanced in the direction of Water Street for a sign of her daughter and Gilda, and Evelyn adjusted her parasol-size yellow hat.

Then, across the grass, the priest saw something very strange—a girl wearing an oversize Motor City T-shirt, dirty pajama bottoms, and bare feet ran toward the ceremony as if her very life depended on it. A teenage boy and a younger girl followed her. As Gilda approached, panting, the priest and dumbstruck guests stared at the most inappropriate sight they had ever seen at a St. Augustine wedding.

“Let the record show that the daughter and son of the bride have a very good reason why these two should not be wed,” Gilda declared as she made her way toward the altar.

I had planned a very special reading for this very special day,” said Gilda, “an original poem. I had also picked out a far more attractive outfit, including gloves and a hat. However, due to
reasons beyond my control
, I was detained this morning and unable to wear it.” Gilda paused to look very directly at Mr. Pook, who appeared to be calculating whether he could run fast enough to get to his car and leave town. Eugene turned to glance behind at the Furbos, who had joined the rest of the guests in glaring at Gilda with as much distaste as they could muster. It was one thing to break up a wedding, but to do so with dirty hair, dusty pajamas, and a Motor City T-shirt was completely unforgivable. “So,” Gilda continued, “before I share the reasons that this wedding must not proceed—and they are many—”

“Gilda, what are you doing?!” Mrs. Joyce hissed, having finally found her voice. She stared at her daughter with the horrified relief and boiling anger of a mother whose child has narrowly missed being hit by a car after darting into traffic.

“Believe me, Mom,” said Gilda, “you'll want to know what I'm about to tell you.”

“Gilda, please get to the point, or
I'm
going to tell them!” said Stephen, who watched from a few feet away.

“Dearly beloved,” Gilda began, “the story I am about to tell you would fill many mystery novels—”

“Oh, please, Gilda!” Stephen blurted, “give us the
short
version!”

“I beg your pardon, Stephen, but this is a hard-earned dramatic moment, which you happen to be ruining.”

“Fine.
I'll
tell everyone.”

Up until now, Mrs. Joyce had watched this exchange between Gilda and Stephen with angry, slack-jawed amazement along with the rest of the wedding guests. Now she suddenly seemed to remember that the two teenagers who were ruining her wedding were actually her own kids.

“Stop it right now!” she shouted, surprising Gilda and Stephen enough that they ceased bickering. “This is unacceptable!” Mrs. Joyce realized that by yelling at her kids in front of everyone, she was only adding further melodrama to a scene that had already spiraled out of control, but she couldn't help it. “First, I can't believe you're late. Second, I can't believe you turned up wearing outfits that I wouldn't even wear to clean the house! Third, you're both grounded for a year!”

“Mom!” Stephen raised his hand in the air. “First, I'll be in college, so I don't think you'll be able to ground me.”

“Don't be so sure about that—”

“Mom, I can explain!”

As Gilda, Stephen, and Mrs. Joyce shouted back and forth, Captain Jack seized the opportunity to attempt a tortoise rescue. He gingerly reached under Mrs. Furbo's chair until he grasped her handbag, then slowly pulled the bag toward him. He was just about to free the captive animal when Mrs. Furbo noticed the disappearing bag and jumped up from her seat just in time to grab a handle and pull with all her might.