Not Quite Gone (A Lowcountry Mystery) (34 page)
Read Not Quite Gone (A Lowcountry Mystery) Online
Authors: Lyla Payne
Daria’s nervous; the quickness of her gait, the way she keeps flicking glances over her shoulders, and the rapid rise and fall of her chest all give her away. I’m feeling like a big tangle of anxiety myself,
both over seeing Mama Lottie again and because of what she might be going to ask me—us—to do. How far will I go to protect that little boy? How far will Amelia go?
According to Leo, as far as it takes. That thought just fills me with more trepidation. If it’s possible to have a heart attack at nearly twenty-six, this is going to be it for me.
We’re close to the Ashley River now, and the movement
of the wind over the water washes my sweaty skin with a cool breeze. I’ve loved this spot my entire life, but now, after seeing Mama Lottie here twice, it’s taken on a darkness that makes me sad. I wish it could be banished but I’m not sure whether that sort of thing can ever be driven off once it’s really settled in. Maybe it’s always been here and I just couldn’t see it until now.
Daria sits
on the lush autumn grass, even though she’s wearing white jean shorts tonight, and I follow suit. We close our eyes together, going through the process of meditating and opening that’s getting more and more familiar to me each time. It feels natural. When she first started telling me about all this crap it sounded hokey, new age, something that she did only to make people think she’s doing something
they can’t. But it’s none of those things. It’s peaceful, talking to my spirit guide even though he or she still hasn’t talked back. I feel connected to the earth, to myself, and to the dead people who are always around but only occasionally choose to show themselves to me.
The theatre door opens in my mind. We spend another several minutes assuring our spirit guides that we’re only here to work
in goodness and light. I say another silent, quick prayer that Mama Lottie feels the same way, then the two of us open our eyes.
The scenery remains the same. Giant oak trees stand sentinel over the night, touching the water with their sleeves of Spanish moss. Light from the moon reflects off the river, moving lazily in the direction of the harbor. Birds hoot, animals rustle quietly among the
leaves as they settle in for the night, and stars twinkle above our heads in a deep blue sky. It’s idyllic, and the familiar peace of the setting winds through me.
I wander forward and Daria follows. We keep our eyes open, sweeping back and forth. We’re looking for Mama Lottie and don’t see anyone else, which Daria mutters is weird. The last time we were here she saw tons of spirits, even when
I didn’t, but tonight—according to her inappropriate wording—the grounds are dead. For real, this time.
“Maybe she’s not here,” I say quietly, disappointed. I don’t know how many nights Jenna will be able to fool with the cameras before the security company notices something’s amiss.
“She’s here,” Daria breathes. “She’s coming.”
My heartbeat quickens. Sweat breaks out on my palms as though
my body senses Mama Lottie’s presence before my eyes register her. Tonight she’s sitting on a bench, staring out toward the water before she turns, her mysterious dark eyes reaching straight into my soul.
“She says she’s happy to see us. She doesn’t like unfinished things.” Daria’s voice is tight, and it’s easy to see she’s struggling to keep the fear off her face. “She wants to know how the
baby is.”
“What baby?” I whisper.
“Jack.” Daria looks at me, questioning.
I never told her Amelia’s name for the baby. Fear trembles in my legs, begs me to run away and never look back. But I can’t do that.
Whatever it takes.
“He’s fine. Strong.”
Mama Lottie nods, looking pleased. More than pleased. Smug.
“She says he’s not going to stay that way unless you break the curse.”
“Duh.” I want
to explode, and I talk straight to Mama Lottie, even though I can’t hear her. I guess she can hear me. “We know we need to break the curse. We believe. We just don’t know how. Or if it can be done.”
“It can be done.” A low, throaty whisper threads into my mind.
I almost stumble, and my hand shoots out, grabbing Daria’s forearm so hard she yanks free. “I can hear her.”
“Curses can be broken,
sure. They’re all made that way,” the voice continues. “You can’t do it, though. You don’t have the blood.”
“The blood?” My father’s voice, telling me that I have an ancestor named Carlotta, flits through my memory. “You said you would help.”
“Said I
could
help. Not that I would. Not unless you help Mama Lottie.”
“You can save Jack for sure? He’ll live until he’s an old man?”
The ghost frowns,
then wags her finger at me the way she did the first night we met and she was warning me away from that snake. “Can’t make promises like that. No guarantees about life and death, you know that. I can break the curse. The boy’s destiny will change, but the rest is up to him. And you.”
“And Amelia.”
She doesn’t comment, just glances back out over the water. When she returns her gaze to me it lands
like a physical blow. Power crawls out of her, dark and alive, pulsing as if it’s breathing. “I do something for you. You do something for me.”
“What? What do I have to do if you break the curse?” I hold my breath, wanting to cry. Feeling like one of those dumb little princesses in the Disney movies who’s about to make a deal that every adult in the audience knows is a horrible idea. They always
do it, anyway.
Why?
For love. Why else?
“The people who owned this land said they owned me. They didn’t. They stole me from my family—my free family—up in New York. Not themselves, you understand, and they didn’t even realize right off. But black children born on plantations didn’t talk the way I did. They didn’t read or write. The Draytons pretended not to know where I came from but they knew.
Do you know why?”
“They needed you.” I sort of guess, sort of know, that’s the answer.
“They
feared
me. And what better way to control a fear than to keep it chained up in your house?” She spits out the words, as though they taste bad in her mouth. The dark power clouding around her grows. Thickens and roils.
Daria hasn’t said a word. Her eyes are huge and she’s stepped so close to me that
our arms press together. My whole body trembles, terror sunk into my very core, but there’s something more. That dread that’s been growing in my middle, putting down roots that have curled into my feet, throbs.
The Draytons. She hates them.
I want to run. I should run away from here and never look back. Keep trying on my own to figure out how to save Jack, to help Amelia. To figure out how to
fight a curse that’s been getting stronger for two hundred years.
Right. Because that’s going to happen.
I stay.
“One curse for another. That’s what I want from you.”
“I don’t understand,” I stammer.
The voice gets quieter, but stronger. Sure. “I’ll help you break the curse that’s going to keep killing the male heirs of Calico Jack Rackham, including the one in your cousin’s belly. You agree
to help me set a new curse, one that will punish the family that stole me from mine once and for all.”
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Not Quite Gone
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
You might think that by a fifteenth or sixteenth (omg I’ve lost count and am too lazy to look it up!) I would have thanked everyone there is to thank or just cut and paste these things, but you would be wrong! I never ceases to amaze me how different the process is for each book, front to back, and even when I’m thanking some of the same people they have each grown with me
and my projects to the point where I’m no longer sure any of this would be possible if I lost a single one of them.
Eisley Jacobs and Iona Nicole, you continue to not only give me beautiful covers but support in a hundred different ways by delivering graphic or website genius at a moment’s notice.
Danielle Poiesz - if I’ve lost count of how many books I’ve published, that means I’ve lost
count of how many books we’ve worked on together because it’s been nearly all of them. There’s nearly no one I would trust so implicitly with my characters, ideas, stories, and occasionally, my sanity. I am so thankful not only for your sound professional advice, but that we’ve become friends within this crazy process.
Shannon Page, thank you for stepping in and copyediting these crazy books.
You know how to roll with the punches, and that’s all a writer can ask for these days.
I’ve come to realize that proofreading is one of the hardest things to get right, and that no matter how many eyeballs go on a manuscript, there are things that slip through the cracks. The team I’ve pulled together have the best eyeballs in the business, which means less distractions for the reader, and
for that, I’m grateful. Thanks to Mary Ziegenhorn, Cheryl Heinrich, Diane Thede, and Diane Cleary for cleaning these up for me.
There are certain people who might not think they have much to do with this specific book, but without whom my life would be such an unholy mess that creating anything except rocking motions in the corner wouldn’t be possible. In no particular order—Denise Grover
Swank, LeighAnn Kopans, Amalia Dillon, on the writing side, along with my wonderfully patient and supportive agent, Kathleen Rushall—you save me. Then there’s my family, blood and not (that includes you, Julia, Jenna, Ryan, and Emma), who put up with my nonsense and make me feel like there’s no one they would rather me be than just me. Andrea Sola, who has likely secured sainthood after nearly thirty
years of friendship with me and Paul, a
more patient and loving and steady love than I could have ever hoped to find—I love you both.
I love you all.
And I love you, dear readers, whose reviews and tweets and mentions and emails do more than brighten my day. They make it easy to sit down in front of the keyboard and do what I love to do—write stories—with the confidence that there are
people out there who are dying to read them.
Also by LYLA PAYNE
WHITMAN UNIVERSITY
Going for Broke
(published in
Fifty First Times: A New Adult Anthology
)
LOWCOUNTRY MYSTERIES
Not Quite Clear (October 27
th
, 2015)
Sleigh Bells & Second Chances
(October 6,
2015)
SECRETS DON’T MAKE FRIENDS
Secrets Don’t Make Friends (November, 2015)
Young Adult Novels Written as TRISHA LEIGH
THE LAST YEAR
THE CAVY FILES
Buried (January, 2016)
THE HISTORIANS
Return Once More (September 29
th
, 2015)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lyla Payne has been publishing New Adult romance novels for a little over a year, starting with
Broken at Love
and continuing with the rest of the Whitman University series. She loves telling stories, discovering the little reasons people fall in love, and uncovering hidden truths in the world around us – past and present. In her spare time she cuddles her two dogs, pretends to enjoy exercising
so that she can eat as much Chipotle as she wants, and harbors a deep and abiding hope that Zac Efron likes older women. She loves reading, of course, along with movies, traveling, and Irish whiskey. Lyla’s hard at work, ALWAYS, and hopes to bring you more Whitman University antics and at least one more Lowcountry ghost tale before the end of the year.
If you want to know more, please visit
her at
http://lylapayne.com
If you’re a fan of Young Adult fiction—science fiction or otherwise—please check out her work that’s published under the name Trisha Leigh.
http://trishaleigh.com