NINE

 

By dinnertime I’d put Miss Emma’s confidences of the afternoon in my memory bank to bring up and think over later. While Uncle Hunter, Jeff, and I waited for my ever-tardy aunt to make her appearance, my uncle used the opportunity to give me a history lesson on the house.

“This room and the keeping room next door are what we consider the original house, though they were actually part of a barn.” He pointed up. “Your room, Ashby, is right above us. That barn was built back in the eighteenth century. Overtons have lived on this land for over two hundred years.”

I took in the floors covered in carpet and the walls papered in silk. For sure it did not look like a barn, but things somehow sounded different and felt different in this room. I wondered if Miss Emma felt the same way. I couldn’t help but think of her terrified look at the mirror over the buffet when I asked her about the weird stuff going on in my room. I jerked back my attention to my uncle.

“…and by the mid-1800s, Overhome was a thriving Southern plantation. The ‘great house’ had been expanded from the barn, and the slave quarters, kitchen house, and sheds fanned out behind. Some of the ruins of these buildings still exist out in the yard.”

“Slave quarters? Did you say slave quarters?” I asked.

“Well, yes. In order to survive at the time, Overhome depended on a small cadre of slave labor, as did all the plantations. I believe at one time there were as many as several dozen slaves living and working at Overhome.”

“B-but slavery?” I could not wrap my mind around the idea that my own family had been slave-holders.

“It was a deplorable practice, no question about it. Nonetheless, slavery was the basis for our Southern economy then.”

“Oh,” was all I could muster. Of course, I’d studied U.S. History. I knew about slavery in the South, but it was a completely abstract idea. The professor lectured, the text described. It was too long ago and too far away to be real. “If I had thought about it, I guess I would have realized…” I trailed off. “It’s hard to visualize people sitting in this room being served by slaves. I…I just find it hard to accept.”

“The War Between the States ended all that, thankfully. Though no one can be proud about slavery, we Overtons still hold our Confederate warriors as heroes. My great-great grandfather, Colonel Burwell Overton, reigns resplendent in his Rebel grays in our portrait gallery.” My uncle pointed toward the portrait wall. “Burwell served with Jubal Early. I believe Abe Murley still salutes that painting every time he enters the house.” A half-smile escaped Uncle Hunter’s lips. “But the Overtons were able to stay solvent, actually to prosper, after the war, with the coming of the railroad in the early 1900’s and the booming economy that flourished around Samson’s Ford.”

Jeff sat patiently listening to this history he must have heard many times before. “Then they built the dam, right, Dad? Flooded the rivers and sank all our out buildings—the old slave houses and the family cemetery and everything.” He made a swooshing sound and a plunging gesture to illustrate his point. “There’s all kinds of buildings and roads and trees and stuff way down at the bottom of the lake.” He blinked his eyes in excitement. “A whole underwater town! Kinda spooky, huh?”

“The lake changed everything in these parts. When the Moore brothers settled in the 1740s, I’m sure they appreciated the picturesque mountains surrounding the rivers and streams meandering through the valley.” Uncle Hunter glanced at me to make sure I was following the story. I nodded, and he continued. “Not until a pump-storage combined with reversible pumps was perfected some two hundred years after the naming of Moore Mountain was a workable dam possible. There was a lot of resistance to the idea of a hydraulic dam. Folks were afraid that the natural beauty of the three-mile gorge would be forever destroyed. Many people were forced to sell their land, for considerable compensation, mind you. Because Overhome is on high land, we were able to save the main house and enough farm land to keep the horse business alive.”

My uncle paused to take a breath. “Oh dear. I hope I haven’t bored you to tears, Ashby. I can get too wound up on one of my favorite topics.” He looked at Jeff, as if to make a final point. “Of course, all of our family graves were moved to a local church cemetery on high ground before the land was flooded.”

Jeff nodded. “One time me and Dad went to the Baptist churchyard and looked for our name on the old tombstones. We used charcoal over paper.” He pantomimed a brushing motion.

At that moment, my aunt arrived. Her entrance matched the elegance of the room, the flowing, pastel caftan tacking like a delicate sail as she walked, her jeweled earrings glittering like Christmas ornaments in the candle light. “How are you?” she enunciated, with a fluid rotation of her long neck. “What an upsetting…what an un-unfortunate incident, t-to be attacked by th-that creature.”

I was surprised to hear the stammer interrupt my aunt’s usual oh-so-careful enunciation.

“Hunter, we simply must do something to prevent this ever h-happening again.” She seemed extremely agitated, fussing with her caftan and blinking her eyes rapidly.

“Now, Monica, I can assure you we’ll see that Ashby is protected from further attacks by marauding dogs. I’ve already taken preventative steps. Don’t worry about it any further. So, what’s going on at the club tonight? I can see you’re dressed for something festive.”

Jeff had sat silent as long as he could. “Dad! Luke says Ashby is good enough to ride the trails now. Isn’t that awesome?”

Uncle Hunter turned his gaze on me. “Is that so? I must say, you are a fast learner, Ashby. I told you riding is in our blood.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I had some lessons a few years ago. It all sort of came back to me.”

“Dad! That means me and Ashby—”

“Ashby and I,” his mother corrected.

“Ashby and I can ride together now. We don’t need to wait around for you or Luke to go along.” He cocked his head to one side. “Course, we’ll still have our rides together, huh, Dad?”

“I wouldn’t miss our rides for the world, Jefferson,” he said gravely. “And I’ll consider your proposal for your riding the trail with your cousin, as long as she’s amenable.” He eyed me again. “I thought you were looking especially energized and fit, Ashby. Riding does that. Good for the health, good for the soul.”

I liked what he said, but I found myself wishing he would smile more often. It would make me feel easier about him. Another contrast with Dad. Dad was jolly, always smiling, joking. It lightened his whole expression. Uncle Hunter’s seriousness weighed him down. The only time I’d seen him let down his hair was when he was driving his ski boat.

Under the table I reached for Jeff’s hand and gave it a squeeze. We shared a secret look of triumph.

The talk floated through the flickering distortion of candles as I allowed the sense of the ancient room to flow around me. Generations of my family had sat at this very table, their conversations ebbing and flowing, and settling into the porous barn wood where the rise and fall of their voices, their very words, were trapped forever.

 

 

Dear Diary: Another unbelievable day in Oz. When I came to bed, I found the radio tuned to country music, yet again. And so my thoughts turned to the original resident, Rosabelle. I’m beginning to think she waits here for me, whiling away her time listening to the soulful sounds of bluegrass in our room.

On that topic, I’m getting nowhere. I need a confidante. Good word, huh? Somebody I can trust, somebody to run over all the data with, sort out fact from fiction. Since I can’t seek out my pals in N.J., who to trust? Luke? Luke, the mystery man. I can’t be sure about him. Why is he so reserved? Abe, who lives in romantic dreams of yesterday? Hunter or Monica? I’d sound like a hysterical lunatic, certainly unfit to oversee their child: “See, there’s this old lullaby and roses which appear and disappear by magic and a candle that melts without being lighted and a radio that tunes itself.” The rational mind would say, “Impossible.”

Talk about your gothic settings! And Overhome has one helluva dark and gloomy history, even without the Spanish moss. But then Miss Emma tells me there are SIGNS! And it all begins to make sense, which is the scariest thing of all. All I know is, as I sat there at dinner tonight in that museum of a room, I felt a kind of immortality where nothing is ever lost, where nothing dies, and nothing changes. If I have a muse, surely she resides in the dining room.

My uncle says there’s a trunk in the attic. A trunk full of memories collected by my birth mother and father. Miss Emma says I shouldn’t stir up the past, but I am on a mission—I must know.