– June 2010 –
I knew that I had to go to Asheville, but I didn’t really understand why. Poe merely told me to find a lodging house that would be open to me having a séance there. I had been doing séances for several years, mostly during October for Halloween-type events, although the séances I conducted weren’t parlor tricks and fun, but instead a means to connect guests with the other side. I hadn’t a clue how I was going to put my feelers out from Michigan and find a warm reception. So on New Year’s Eve 2009, I began looking for a bed and breakfast. I simply put keywords into Google—Bed and Breakfast and Asheville.
I pulled up three prospects. One in particular looked riveting, except the website was down. There was only the static page with its name; The Reynolds Mansion, Previously the Old Reynolds Mansion; a picture of the inn; COMING SOON; and a phone number. It had no opening
date, but I marked it down for my assistant Donna to call anyhow. It was the end of the first week of January when Donna phoned me, sounding breathless and excited.
“Kristy, you have to call Billy as soon as possible. He is the owner of the Reynolds Mansion in Asheville, and I think this is perfect for you. He wasn’t even afraid when
I told him you were a psychic.” Donna laughed. “How excited is the owner to have you? Too excited! It was such a fun conversation!”
“Wait, slow down, Donna.” I laughed into the phone.
Without skipping a beat, she continued, “The mansion isn’t open for business until March. It has been closed for four years, and he says if you contact him in March, he will be available to give you any date you want. The dining table (there is only one) holds exactly twenty people. He will not have rates available until February,” Donna breathlessly finished and took a deep and happy sigh.
Donna is not a psychic but she is quite gifted with a sense of knowing, and I always trusted her opinions, so if she said I needed to call Billy, I needed to call Billy.
So after catching up about the previous holiday, we hung up and I dialed the North Carolina phone number only to receive a voicemail. I left a brief message about needing to speak to Billy about an event in the summertime, and before I hung up my other line was ringing from the same number.
“Thanks so much for calling me back,” I said when I answered.
“No, thank you for calling us, Kristy,” Billy said, his slow, southern drawl wooing me.
I explained to him that I was looking for a place that had a haunted history to hold an event at. No, I had never been to Asheville, but I felt as if I was being called there to do this and that I didn’t know why. All right, it wasn’t all me. I knew that Poe was pushing me to go to Asheville, but I didn’t know why. What I found ironic, however, was that the last name Poe uttered before his passing was one and the same—Reynolds.
“I promise I’m not crazy,” I giggled into the phone. “Wait, probably all crazy people say that!”
Billy chuckled. “If you only knew how much this all makes sense to me, Kristy.”
We spoke for almost an hour, both in awe, but not surprised, at the serendipitous encounter. Billy and his partner Michael always wanted to own a B & B. Well, I take that back, Billy always wanted a B & B and in good partnerships you support your partner’s passion. In youth, Billy said he wanted to own a large plantation-type home and when he and Michael looked around Asheville, they fell in love with the Reynolds Mansion even though it was in disarray.
“Oh, Kristy, this place was a mess. A normal person would’ve thought I was nuts to have fallen in love with it, but I saw the diamond in the rough. And after we pulled back the ivy and took down the trees, the mansion began to shine back to its original glory. We are nowhere near done with renovations, but we are hoping to open in March or April, so a June event will work just fine. And, I sort of knew you were going to call me.”
I was confused. I mean I knew that Donna had called, but the way that he said it had a deeper meaning.
“What do you mean, Billy?” I curiously asked.
“Well, you see, Michael and I have a friend in Chicago who is psychically gifted, and we sort of tested her.” Billy mischievously laughed. “We met with her over dinner and put several photographs, face down, and asked her which she thought was best for us. One by one, she offered us her impressions and then flipped the photographs over. Now, realize that the photos of this mansion didn’t look at all appealing. And some of the photos were homes that were not for sale at all. She immediately pulled out the photo of the Reynolds Mansion and said that there was good energy here and that others would see it, too. And although it is haunted, we’d never feel threatened here, but that the hauntings would draw people to it. So, you see, I knew you would be calling, I just didn’t know it would be so soon!”
I expressed my concern that I couldn’t draw a crowd to the event, but Billy put my mind at ease by giving me the old adage that if I build it, they will come. And so I simply began advertising a Supernatural Weekend.
Spend the weekend (June 11th and June 12th) with the supernatural at the Reynolds Mansion in Asheville, North Carolina. Experience a Séance, Readings with Psychic Medium Kristy Robinett, and a Paranormal Investigation. Spend the night in this very haunted mansion, which dates back to 1847, and was once used as a sanitarium. The Reynolds Mansion is newly owned and boasts three floors, rooms with hot tubs, two cottages, and four acres of haunted history. Witness firsthand how renovations can stir up ghostly activity.
Chuck and I set out on our journey to North Carolina in the early morning of June 10. We knew that it would be a long drive, over nine hours, but the excitement about the destination made it all worth it.
I had a difficult time going through the mountains in Tennessee and at one point begged Chuck to get off at the nearest exit so that I could get ill. As soon as we pulled into the McDonald’s, it began to pour to the point you couldn’t see the windy road in front of you. As soon as I got back in the car, less than ten minutes later, the rain had stopped and the sun had come out to dry the roads with its southern rays. I don’t believe in coincidences and took this as a sign of protection and blessing.
The mansion was an ominous sight even in the daylight, but one that made me excited and giddy. I felt as if this was destiny; a trip that had to be completed in order for me to put visions of a past life to rest, or at least connect more dots. Poe had already told me to let go of any expectations and just enjoy North Carolina with fresh eyes. But I felt that couldn’t be done until I met the demons from that past and handed the keys over to them for a new tenant. It was breathtaking how the southern mansion was returned to her original glory. She glowed from the attention and the love.
“Let me take you on a tour,” Billy urged, welcoming us with a hug and handing us a glass of cold lemonade as if we were long-lost friends.
The Reynolds Mansion was built in 1847 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. One of the few remaining pre-Civil War homes, the mansion sits on several acres with exceptional views of Reynolds Mountain. With wraparound porches, twelve fireplaces, and exquisite furnishings, the warmth and Southern hospitality is felt immediately when you pull up to the three-story mansion. Once inside, the comforts continue with music playing, reminiscent of the 1940s, and an elaborate, wide, winding staircase gracing the entrance. Above the staircase, nostalgic of the movie Gone with the Wind, hangs a portrait of Scarlett O’Hara.
Just on cue, we were greeted by two adorable bulldogs named Rhett and Scarlett who decided against the tour and instead laid in the sun on the steps. Billy took us to the second floor, where he explained that each floor had a Keurig® machine for coffee and tea, cold drinks, and fat pills—muffins, cookies, etc. I wasn’t sure we were ever going to leave. He continued to name each room in the mansion one-by-one, which were named after treasured relatives of Billy’s and Michael’s.
I had reserved Inez’s room. It was a small room on the third floor with a happy vibe. In the colors of coral, red, and black, the room just sang with whimsy. As we made our way to the top floor with our luggage, Billy asked me over and over if this was the room I was supposed to have, not the room that I wanted. I saw Poe standing behind Billy, but he gave no indication that it mattered, so I told him that it was just fine.
Before Billy could leave us to unpack, I was pulled to the room across the hall, where I noticed a young lady sitting in the chair. Billy carefully watched me as I stepped around him and wandered into the room named Maggie.
“Billy, have there been any sightings of a young woman in this room?”
Billy was quick to explain that the third floor was probably the most active for paranormal activity. “The Reynolds Mansion actually has no history of tragic death, and unlike many homes from this era, it was never raided or ransacked during the Civil War. But … ” He squinted while looking at me. “There was a significant renovation at the end of the last century by Nathaniel Augustus Reynolds. That was when they raised the ceiling and added this third floor. Oddly enough, it is this third floor where the majority of the ghostly activity seems to happen.” He gave me a slightly cockeyed look. “You might have seen the ghost of Annie Lee. She’s sometimes seen as young, and sometimes old, but we think she is one and the same.”
I peeked back into the room and the spirit still sat there, unbeknownst of my presence. Her thick, dark brown hair, with a slight curl, hung over her shoulders. With her thin build and prominent cheekbones, she looked to be maybe about twenty years of age. She was dressed in a cotton floral dress and held a knitting needle and yarn in her lap, lost in her own thoughts. Every so often she would look up and out the window at the expansive yard, as if patiently awaiting someone’s arrival.
“It was soon after Michael and I purchased the mansion and were doing renovations when a bride and her mom came to meet with me about having a wedding shower here,” Billy said, peeking around me every so often to see if he could see what I did. “I didn’t hear them come in, and they took me by surprise. They looked a bit upset with me and went on to explain that they had been waiting awhile. I asked them why they didn’t ring the bell and they said that they didn’t have to, a young girl let them into the house and ran off when they asked if she would let me know they had arrived. I was obviously puzzled and didn’t know what to say other than shake my head. I said that nobody else was here but Michael and myself, and I thought they were going to run for the hills and look for another location to have their event.”
“And you think that might have been Annie Lee?”
Billy nodded. “Here.” Billy grabbed my hand and led me to a glass cabinet in the hallway. “See this hairpin?”
Several odd treasures lay in the case, but he pointed specifically to a rusty hairpin. “One day this just appeared.”
“What do you mean it just appeared?” I asked, confused.
“I had made the bed in Maggie’s room, and a couple hours later went in the room to find this lying on the middle of the bed. Nobody had been here, Kristy. It just appeared.”
I had cases where such paranormal obscurity had happened, but it was rare. I had objects disappear more than appear. It made me wonder if the Reynolds Mansion had a portal of some sort between times. Maybe this is why Poe wanted me here. I had asked for time travel.
As we unpacked, I continued to feel pulled to Maggie’s room. Although the lady remained, the spirit didn’t acknowledge me. This time she sat in the armchair, reading next to the window that looked out to the front of the home.
We decided to go to dinner, and after changing out of our travel clothes met up with Billy in the library. As Billy showed Chuck a map of the area, I let out a gasp.
“Billy, are you a fan of Dark Shadows?” I asked, referring to a portrait of Barnabas Collins, or at least the actor who played Barnabas in one of my very favorite television shows.
“Why, yes,” he blushed. “I know that it doesn’t quite fit in with the classic style of the home, but I love Dark Shadows.”
“Me too!” I squealed, while Chuck rolled his eyes and laughed.
I saw Poe sitting in a leather wing-back chair, grinning in delight. I believe that Billy and I were meant to meet, thanks to Poe.
“Let me show you this,” Billy grabbed my hand and again led us to the second floor, where for some reason I hadn’t even seen the horror movie posters hanging in the hallway.
The house was very much like a personal museum with paintings of Michael’s and Billy’s families, old photos of the Reynolds Mansion and their family, antiques that each had a story, and just plain loved objects.
“This,” Billy pointed at an object in another glass case, “is an authentic vampire hunting kit. Stake, holy water, Bible, and even a coffin key. This is the real deal.”
I gawked.
“Oh good, so if we are attacked by vampires, we are safe?” Chuck asked teasingly.
Billy and I nodded in unison and then laughed.
“Are you sure you don’t want to move to the first floor, Kristy? I think Lila’s room would gift you much more sleep.”
Thinking that sleep was probably a good idea, we took Billy up on his proposal and switched rooms to a gorgeous first-floor room with sixteen-foot ceilings, a crystal chandler, a queen bed, and a beautiful gas fireplace. It looked very elegant. Once settled, we headed off to dinner.
Chuck and I decided to venture into downtown Asheville to find a bite to eat. Taking in the eccentric community that seemed to boast a hippie feel from a bygone decade, we drank in the mountain air, ate organic pizza, and enjoyed some southern sweet tea. Evening caught up with us quickly, and we decided to rest and enjoy the mansion.
Using the facilities in our new room, I immediately felt the spirit of an older man who smelled of strong cologne. Chuck was unaware of what I had seen and rested in the room while I socialized on the front porch. When I checked on him an hour or so later, he told me that he saw a gray figure of a man in the corner of the room. As the figure moved into the chandelier’s light, his clothes turned to color. He then smelled a strong smell of men’s cologne. Since he rarely sees spirits, he was pretty excited and loved the validation when I shared my experience along with what Billy had told me.
“Oh, that would be Mr. Reynolds,” Billy validated. “He died in that room.”
I laughed and questioned him on if the room move was a good idea or not. Then I wondered if perhaps the cologne smell was to disguise the scent of death. Was it going to be a busy night?
Billy and Michael, along with other guests, sat on the front porch marveling at the magic the fireflies offered when Billy gave us a brief history lesson of our home away from home for the next couple days. The Reynolds Mansion’s website filled in the rest of the history.
Colonel Daniel Reynolds built the imposing brick home on a knoll of Reynolds Mountain in 1847, where he and his wife, Susan Adelia Baird, had ten children, five boys and five girls. The land, a total of 1,500 acres, was a gift from Susan’s father, Isreal Baird.
Daniel Reynolds passed away in 1878, and his son, William Taswell Reynolds, inherited the home known as the Reynolds House, along with 140 acres that remained with the estate. In 1880, William Taswell married Mamie Spears and they had four children, including Robert Rice Reynolds, who would become a US Senator in the 1930s.
In 1890, William Taswell sold the house and land to his younger brother, Natt Augustus Reynolds. Two years later, William passed away at the age of forty-two. Ten years after that, Mamie Spears Reynolds married Natt Augustus Reynolds. It wasn’t necessarily out of love, Billy was quick to point out, it was more convenience and to keep the family living within the highly acclaimed status.
In the early 1930s, Natt and Mamie moved back to the house and helped raise two of Senator Robert Reynolds’s children by his first wife, Frances. Frances had died of typhoid fever when the children, Frances and Robert Rice Reynolds II, were less than three years old.
Senator Reynolds, known as “Our Bob,” took residence at the Reynolds House while serving as a US Senator from North Carolina. His fifth wife was Evelyn Washington McLean who was the owner of the famous Hope Diamond.
“In the den, we have a replica of that Hope Diamond,” Billy smiled, “and boy does that have a story in itself. Today, the diamond is displayed at the Smithsonian in Washington, DC, but it is said that it has a curse upon it and may even be haunted—so it’s there for safekeeping.”
Mamie Spears Reynolds died in the 1940s and Natt’s daughter, Adelene Reynolds Hall, came to live in the mansion with her father. She was married to Lawrence Hall and they had three children, Natt, Margaret, and Annie. They ran the Hall Coal Yard and the house was referred to as the Hall house at that time.
Natt “Gus” Reynolds died in the 1950s and left the house to Adelene. She in turn left it to her daughters, Annie and Margaret. The house was sold at least two more times before Fred and Helen Faber bought it in 1970. They rebuilt and restored the home, updating the kitchen but trying not to change any more than was necessary. They opened it as a B & B in 1972, calling it the “Old Reynolds Mansion.”
“Not much has changed since 1847, except for adding more bathrooms,” Michael shared.
On September 13, 1984, the Reynolds Mansion was listed on the National Register of Historic Places and was placed in a protected status. Fewer than ten brick houses survived the Civil War, and the Reynolds Mansion is one of them.
“When Fred died in 2003, Helen tried to keep it up, but it was just too much work for her. After thirty years of loving this home, this,” Billy gestured lovingly to the mansion, “became ours.”
As I enjoyed the variance of drawls, I noticed that one of the porch lights flickered as certain people were mentioned. I pointed it out, but I was met with smirks and smiles until the others witnessed it. After that no matter how much we tried to debunk and imitate, we could not reproduce it. I welcomed the beginning of a supernatural weekend.
Exhausted from the drive and knowing that we had a big weekend ahead, Chuck and I went to bed as early as we could, but it wasn’t too long after that I was awakened.
At 1:20 a.m., I woke up to find the spirit of a man standing at the foot of our bed. Dressed in tails and holding a black top hat, the spirit glared at me and explained that he was not happy at all that the den was locked. I blinked and he still stood there waiting for me to answer. Not knowing what to do, my first instinct was to run to the en suite bathroom and turn the light on. When I turned around, he was gone. Shaking my head as if perhaps the exhaustion of the drive had made my head fuzzy, I left the light on in the bathroom, but I closed the door without latching it in hopes it would calm me.
I crawled back into the high bed and closed my eyes for a moment only to be bathed in light. Snapping open my eyes, I saw the bathroom door had been flung wide open. The bathroom light that I had turned on in order to feel comforted was instead blinding me. I nudged Chuck, who previously told me to wake him if I needed him.
“What?” he scowled.
“There was a ghost of a man at the foot of the bed,” I responded, looking around wondering where he had gone.
“What time is it?”
“One-twenty.”
Chuck moaned. “Turn the light on in the bathroom then.”
Light normally gives me a feeling of safety. Although I didn’t feel threatened in the least, I also didn’t quite like sleeping with an angry spirit next to me who knew I could communicate with him.
“I did and the door opened up,” I whined like a little girl.
“Put a shoe inside the bathroom, against the door and a shoe outside the door and go to sleep,” Chuck mumbled and lovingly patted me on the arm.
I got up, looked around the large room, and took my husband’s suggestion with the shoes. Then, I laid back down, feeling somewhat satisfied.
It wasn’t long that after that I fell asleep and woke up again to a spirit of a lady. She sat on the end of the bed, stroking my right hand. She told me that she had died and she had been set on a “silly table that made her feel dizzy.” She motioned to me like a teeter-totter and I about vomited when I realized that she was telling me she had been embalmed. I closed my eyes and wished her away and it worked, because I awoke to the smell of breakfast cooking and daylight peeking in through the blinds.
Breakfast was promptly at 9:00 in the morning in the dining room. I pulled myself out of one of the most comfortable beds that I had ever slept on to take a quick shower and dress and wait for Chuck to do the same. Before going to the bathroom, I glanced over at my necklace on my nightstand, which laid next to the alarm clock, and contemplated putting it on. Thinking that was silly as I always put my necklace on after the shower, I shook my head and thought perhaps the mountain air was getting to me. After my shower, I put my earrings in and walked over to the table to grab my necklace only to find it wasn’t there. And the alarm clock was blank. I inquired to Chuck, who gruffly asked me why he would take my necklace and then marched into the shower. I unplugged the alarm clock and plugged it in again. Nothing. I took it to another plug and plugged it in. Nothing. So, I took it back, plugged it into its original outlet, and went to visit Billy. I explained my predicament, and he assured me that he would find my necklace. I returned to our room and, just as I opened the bedroom door, Chuck held my necklace up. He showed me the odd place where he found it in the bathroom—inside of a glass dish where I know for a fact I never placed it—and the alarm clock was glowing its proper time. Cue the Twilight Zone music.
As we sat for breakfast, I reassured Billy that all was okay now and he just smiled as we ate our blueberry salad and homemade biscuits along with something he called eggs in a basket. Each plate was more delicious than the one before.
Friday morning came all too soon with a paranormally active nighttime, but once again the adrenaline of the weekend took hold and thoughts of slumber were pushed far from my droopy lids, even though a nap sounded like heaven. With a morning of television interviews, sessions with clients, and lunch with a grade school friend who had moved to North Carolina, I knew a nap wouldn’t happen anytime soon. And then Chuck and I were also telling and re-telling our paranormal tales that seemed to continue on in the morning.
Chuck cherishes his baseball hats. He has hundreds and makes sure to match them to his daily outfit, along with his shoes. It is odd to me, but similar to how a woman chooses her jewelry. And because I know that if there is a hair on his hat, he will go nuts, I also know not to touch them. It seemed that he had placed his Chicago Red Sox hat on the fireplace mantel in our bedroom. As I was running around that morning searching for my lost mother of pearl necklace, Chuck was trying to figure out why his hat was mashed in.
“Did you touch my hat?” Chuck inquired. “Did you perhaps sit on my hat?” He asked again in awe, holding up the caved-in cap.
“Right,” I answered in a sarcastic tone, knowing what my fate would be if I had done anything of the kind.
“I found my hat, there.” He pointed to the only chair in the room without a piece of luggage on. “But I had left it on the fireplace mantel. That darn spirit moved and then sat on my hat!” he spat.
Chuck decided that perhaps Mr. Reynolds wasn’t a Chicago Red Sox fan at all, but more than likely a Cubs fan and had sat on his hat. And Chuck was angry.
After the morning’s work, I was ready for a much-needed nap. My sleep was filled with more wildly vivid dreams of centuries past that intertwined with Poe, the Reynoldses, and my own past life, yet none of it was cohesive. Chuck had been napping on the back porch, but must’ve sensed that I, too, was awake and joined me in the dining room for a soft drink and a snack. I had all but lost track of my Native American guide Alto. I could almost always sense him around me, but ever since reaching the North Carolina mountains, it was as if he’d disappeared. And while Poe was around, he wasn’t being helpful at all. It was in the dining room where I found Poe sitting on the piano bench that sat in the corner, staring up at a portrait of a beautiful lady that was hung above one of the many fireplaces in the mansion.
Billy came out of the kitchen to ask if we needed anything, wiping his brow. He was a hard worker—that much was obvious. He barely had a staff and I was worried he was doing too much himself. I could see Michael with the dogs outside working on the pool. They were a great team and I melted every time I watched the two of them look at one another, as even their glances were filled with a depth of love that most people never witnessed or received.
“Mind if I take a break here with you?” Billy asked, pouring himself a sweet tea and sitting down at the table.
“Not at all,” Chuck said. Adding, “It is your home, Billy!”
Billy shook his head. “I want it to be everyone’s home who enters.”
“Who’s that, Billy?” I asked, pointing to the portrait that Poe continued to stare up at.
“That’s Felicity. Do you have a moment to hear the story?”
Chuck and I both smiled and nodded. Billy was a natural storyteller, and once he started, we were pulled in to the tale.
“Now, I didn’t know anything about this lovely lady when I first saw her in an antique store in Florida, but I knew that I wanted her immediately. However, the price tag was steep and there was a sign that said that the price would triple if you tried to negotiate.
“Michael and I went back to the car, and I felt dejected. Something told me to go back in there. Michael warned me again about the sign as I left him in the car, and I waved him off. So I went back into the shop and stared up at the dark-haired beauty. I knew that at her pretty little price, almost $3,000,” he whispered, as if quieting the fact that he didn’t want her to know she wasn’t worth that,
“I couldn’t afford her. The owner came over and said that I looked like I was in love. I told him that I was, and that this was all I wanted for my upcoming birthday gift, but not at that price. He said his wife would probably kill him, but he knocked the price down to a song, less than $1,000. When I walked out of the shop with the painting wrapped and under my arms, I thought Michael was going to be sick.”
We all laughed at the image.
“What I didn’t realize, however, was that this Cajun beauty was trouble.”
“How so?” I asked curiously, looking from the painting and back to Poe.
Billy continued, “Not long after getting her into our then home, paranormal activity began happening. We would hear footsteps when nobody was there. I swore one time I even heard a woman cry. And then there were the kitchen incidents. Michael kept asking me why I kept leaving all of the cupboards and drawers open in the kitchen. I didn’t know what he meant until it happened to me. I woke up and went to the kitchen to see every single cupboard and every single drawer open. We moved to another state, and once again hung her up. This time when we got home from work, the plumbing underneath the sink was disconnected and our home was flooded.”
Chuck and I sat with our mouths open. “And you think she did it?” Chuck asked.
“Yes. There was no other explanation.”
“And here, Billy? Has anything happened here?”
“Oh, lots, but I don’t think it’s Felicity. I think that someway, somehow, Felicity was helping us find our home. She originally lived in a plantation house in Louisiana. This to her feels like home,” Billy said. “The picture of her home, Chretien Point Plantation, is in, well, it’s ironically in Maggie’s room.”
The Ghost Hunter’s Guide to New Orleans tells the story of Chretien Point Plantation. The plantation is located in Sunset, Louisiana, fourteen miles north of Lafayette, Louisiana. The Chretien and Neda families were friends and business partners, who also had close ties to the famous pirate, Jean Lafitte. Although an unlikely couple, Hypolite Chretien, a portly man, and Felicité Neda (spelled today as Felicity), beautiful, passionate, and feisty for the time period, fell in love and married. They first built a small and modest home on the family land, but a couple years later, as business continued to escalate and a certain status had to be kept, they built a grand plantation home on the 640 secluded acres on the banks of the Bayou Bourbeau. There, Felicité had three children, two boys and a girl.
Felicité and Hypolite were often found quarreling, but nobody could deny their love. One of the major arguments surrounded the family treasures. The business was successful, from both legal and illegal dealings, and Felicité wanted a larger part of the day-to-day operations. Smugglers were welcomed into their home because they provided a means of avoiding heavy taxes on imported items coming in through New Orleans. The Chretiens befriended these shady merchants, offered them food and drink, and allowed them to use the land for the distribution of their contraband, which included merchandise, gold, silver, and even slaves. Hypolite was quite aware that what he was doing was dangerous dealings, and although he gave enough work to Felicité to keep busy, it wasn’t enough for his spunky wife. But it was when Hypolite took their family treasures of gold, silver, and jewelry and had a devoted slave bury it deep within a grove of trees on the cotton plantation under a moonlit sky that Felicité became upset. Despite begging from Felicité, Hypolite refused to divulge the location of the treasure.
In 1838, Felicité and Hypolite lost their infant son to yellow fever. A year later, Hypolite himself passed away, leaving Felicité with two children, 500 slaves, and acres of a plantation to care for, never revealing where he hid the family treasure.
Despite the lost riches, the plantation was extremely well off and everyone around knew it. Hypolite was also a big talker with enough liquor in him, and although Jean Lafitte was a trusted friend despite being a pirate, his men were not.
Felicité was as unconventional as could be, wearing her treasured and expensive jewels even for day-to-day functions. So upon the news that Hypolite was dead and Felicité was alone, it only made sense that the pirates would try to take advantage of the situation. One night Felicité awakened to a commotion outside. She looked through the bedroom window to see several pirates digging and another coming up her front steps. She ran downstairs, opened the front door, took a gun, and shot him. The shot echoed in the night. The remaining pirates fled while the slaves assisted in burying the dead man in an unmarked grave. It is rumored that the blood could never be washed off the steps and remains even today, along with his spirit.
Billy shared with us that soon after the killing, Felicité took on boarders, including one young man who was a painter. He asked if he could paint her portrait and Felicité agreed. She would sneak away to a back house where she would spend hours allowing this handsome stranger to paint her. Felicité and the painter fell in love, or at least he fell in love with the sassy Cajun. Although she was a rebel, she didn’t want to mar her and her children’s good name.
It was a faithful slave on her way back from town who alerted Felicité that soldiers were on the way. Felicité, always a quick thinker, directed her staff to kill the poultry and make a huge feast. Setting the table with an array of foods and wine from her cellars, she hoped that her home would be spared. Felicité met the general at the gates to her property and, with a smile, handed him the keys to her home. Skeptical and assuming that it was a setup and she was hiding opposing soldiers, the general directed his men to thoroughly search the property. When no other soldiers were found, the men gorged on the prepared feast. Although Felicité’s intentions were smart, it backfired and instead of the men being fed and happy, they were fed and drunk and began burning down the slave quarters and other outbuildings on the property, including the slave hospital, slave church, and barns. They spared the mansion, but they pillaged the furnishings and sent away her slaves with threats that if they didn’t leave they would be shot. Without any slaves to continue the plantation, Felicité took her two children and moved to New Orleans.
“A few years later, Felicité passed away and the land and mansion were passed down to her children. In 1863, the plantation was almost destroyed again when it became the scene of the Battle of Little Crow Bayou, and,” Billy pointed, “this is one of only three paintings of Felicity that miraculously survived that fire. It was stored in one of the outbuildings where the painter was still staying, mourning the loss of his lover. When he went back in, everything was burned, but she was still intact. You can still see a slight burn mark in the corner.”
I didn’t know why I felt so drawn to her, and I wondered even more so why Poe was acting like he himself just saw a ghost.
“An interesting fact about the Chretien Point Plantation is that the stairs in their home were replicated for Gone with the Wind, along with the scene where Scarlett shoots the Union soldier, much like Felicity’s own experience on the plantation stairwell. I didn’t even know that when I purchased her,” Billy said.
After our chat, Billy went back to work and I prepared for the night’s séance that was to take place in the dining room. Participants showed up to the nighttime event, sat around the polished table, and were given instructions on what to expect. Fingertips gently placed on the table, forming a circle for protection—the séance began.
I never require validation throughout a séance. I offer the spirits to voice who they are, who they may be for, and what messages they would like to share. Validation in a séance often breaks my concentration (which is different than a regular reading or even a gallery reading) because I offer the spirits, sometimes in the hundreds, their time. It can sometimes be like visiting a kindergarten classroom and making out blips of information from all of the excited kids. It isn’t easy. I always close off a séance if I feel something negative is coming through, as I only allow spirits of the higher vibration and white light to come through and anything else to stay away. Well, I didn’t get a negative energy, but a very persistent spirit who was blocking anybody else from coming through … Felicité.
She stood next to me, looking much like her portrait that hung only a few feet away. She said she was misunderstood and was referred to as a spirited woman of the nineteenth century. Of that she didn’t deny, but she was upset that her reputation may have been overdramatized. It wasn’t that Billy or Michael misspoke of anything in the least, and she was very happy that she was held in such high regard by both of them. She even felt as if the home, the Reynolds Mansion, felt more like the plantation in which she had previously lived. No, it was more that she valued honesty and truths and something in her past wasn’t being told truthfully, mainly being that she didn’t up and leave her homestead willingly. The Chretien family was going to oust her for having a romance. Her eyes grew clouded. She reiterated how much she prided herself on keeping the plantation home going.
Just as I thought she might leave to unlock the door to the other side for the very patient participants, she eyed Poe sitting in the corner. Their eyes locked in recognition, and they both smiled.
“Have you told her about Reynolds?” Felicité asked Poe.
He shook his head and put his finger up to his lips, asking for her silence.
And then they were gone. The séance continued with knocks, footsteps, and noises, along with messages from loved ones for those around the table.
Afterward my brain felt numb, and although I was eager to ask Poe what Felicity meant and what their relationship was, I just wanted to go to bed. Just then, the B & B’s phone rang, making us all jump.
“It’s after midnight,” Billy commented, in an annoyed manner, but he answered it.
I looked on curiously as he gave directions.
“It’s what sounds like two young girls. They weren’t aware of your event, but they were looking for a haunted location. I am putting them in Maggie’s room,” he chuckled.
The irony was a couple never showed up for that night, and although both Billy and I continued to call them, we never received an answer.
“Everything happens for a reason, Kristy,” Billy said drowsily and went to the office to await the nighttime guests.
I finished saying goodbyes and good nights, and barely got into my nightclothes before I was dead to the world. I woke up again to the smell of freshly brewed coffee and a thick fog that covered the grounds.
Before breakfast, I took a few minutes to walk the grounds. The morning fog enveloped my legs, making me look as if I was an apparition myself. I sensed a familiar spirit walking next to me. I didn’t have to check first to see if it was in fact him, I began without any small talk.
“Who is Felicity to you? Another one on your long list of lost loves?”
I heard him chuckle, the laugh resonating within my mind, but he didn’t answer right away. Walking over to a wooden swing that hung from a large oak tree, I sat down and gently kicked my legs.
“And who is Reynolds? Is there any connection to Daniel Reynolds who built this mansion?”
Poe leaned against the tree and sighed. Putting his hand on his head as if he had a headache, he began, “I did know Felicity, but she wasn’t a love, although I doted on her so. I met her just once as she was on business in New Orleans, and she stated that she was an admirer of my work. I had taken a trip to meet with a literary magazine and lecture. It was her story that influenced my award-winning short story The Gold-Bug.”
“And Reynolds? Is the last word you spoke any connection to this?” I pointed to the southern plantation.
“Not Daniel himself, but part of his lineage, yes.” Poe took his hand away from his head and placed it to his side. He raised the collar on his coat, which was always an indicator that he was done talking to me, but I needed more answers.
“Care to continue?” I dared.
He shook his head. “No, not yet, Kristy. It isn’t time. Oh, the past, it is like a pebble in my shoe,” Poe squawked.
I swung higher on the swing, pumping my legs harder and harder. “Dammit, Poe, I am not one of your readers who needs or even wants your cryptograms.” When I slowed my swinging I noticed that he was gone. He never did like criticism. I feared that I had ticked him off by not playing his game.
“Why don’t you stay for another couple days?” Billy pleaded, giving me a hug on the back porch. “It will give you an opportunity to just rest.”
The night before the séance there was a ghost investigation. It had been fun and active. The group that came out to investigate was like long-lost friends, and I wondered if it was perhaps the southern hospitality everyone talks about.
The girls who came the night before had many experiences in Maggie’s room that left them tired, but also excited. The doorknob jiggled several times as if someone was trying to come into the room, which Billy confirmed was a constant complaint and had the same thing happen on his and Michael’s own suite. During the investigation, we heard whispers, heard a dog bark even though Rhett and Scarlett were sound asleep, and several of us were touched, a feeling that can be unsettling. There were extreme temperature changes, and several sensed someone nearby.
“No, we really have to go, even though I don’t want to,” I said, hugging Billy back.
We weren’t heading home. We had scheduled a couple of days in Myrtle Beach to do just what Billy suggested, rest, but this time at the oceanfront.
As Chuck drove the car down the windy road toward the freeway, I felt a bit unsettled and incomplete. I had hoped for more, but I thought maybe I was being too hard on myself and had too high of expectations for something I should have had no expectations. It had nothing to do with the events at the mansion, but more figuring out Poe’s puzzle. To make matters more curious, the mysteries seemed to become more entangled rather than solved. I also hadn’t seen nor heard from my main guide Alto since we entered North Carolina. It was like I lost him en route. He was my main vein for business and since getting to the Reynolds Mansion I hadn’t received one client order when I checked my e-mail, and I was concerned. Not only concerned about Alto, but about my bank account.
The first night in Myrtle Beach made me wish the kids were with us. The hotel and beaches were filled with families and instead of enjoying our time as a couple, I wanted to send an airplane ticket to them for the next flight. If Chuck was expecting any sort of romance from this trip, I am sure he was sorely disappointed.
With my melancholy mood and the hotel room that had two full beds, me in one and Chuck in the other, I got the laptop out and started researching how far Charleston was from where we were. I found it was a little more than an hour away, albeit the opposite direction from home. But there was a pull that I couldn’t ignore any longer, and I had an inkling who was tugging.
We had taken the kids to Myrtle Beach a few years before, so seeing that was familiar territory. I had made the hotel reservations, and yet something was still telling me to go to Charleston. When I had called and mentioned it to my girlfriend, she said she didn’t care much for Charleston, and it left me feeling confused all over again.
Chuck was always good for spontaneity, me not so much, so when I decide to change the rules smack dab in the middle of the game, he knows to listen.
“Let’s go to Charleston.”
There, I had said it. It was like a weight had lifted and a feeling of contentment took over. I looked over at Poe, who was standing, staring out the hotel room window at the storm clouds rolling in. He turned around, offered me a wink, and went back to his pondering.
“I know you hate tours and all, but I would like to do a history tour and a ghost tour.”
Chuck groaned and tossed his fantasy baseball magazine down on the bed and looked at me sideways. “Why? It’s like a surgeon on vacation going to do surgery just for the fun of it.”
Point taken.
“I am not quite sure how to explain it … ”
Chuck pretended as if I shot him and lay back on the bed, holding his chest.
“I know … so unusual. Can you just trust me on this? Just one night. And I won’t purposefully choose a haunted hotel, okay? You’ll have fun! I swear.” I was telepathically telling Poe that he better make this worth all of our whiles. “I don’t want a wild goose chase,” I uttered under my breath to Poe.
Chuck groaned again, sat back up on the bed, grabbed his magazine, and began to read. Or he was just simply ignoring me?
I still hadn’t divulged to Chuck about Edgar Allan Poe. I wasn’t sure if it would make it worse or better. What I did know was that I had won a battle, so I went to work on securing hotel reservations and tour tickets.