Chapter Eleven

Nothing is so painful to the human mind
as a great and sudden change.
~Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

MY SCREAM BROUGHT MY MOTHER running downstairs in her pajamas. If I hadn’t just experienced the fright of my life, I might’ve enjoyed watching Ben bumble his way down without his glasses, his receding hairline suddenly exposed by bedhead.

I confronted the adults in the hall with Stella’s headband hanging from my fingertips.

Once I managed to explain what I’d witnessed, Ramsey checked the house’s alarm system and reported he’d forgotten to activate it for the night. Duh.

After my mother sent him back to the kitchen for a Snapple for me, Ben rejoined us in the hall. “Drugs. It’s the logical explanation.” He spoke to Mom as if I wasn’t there and handed me the bottle. “Not Chelsea, mind you. The Pellman girl. She’s probably high on a crack binge and came here looking to nick something to sell.”

“What?” I froze in the middle of unscrewing the lid of my drink. After an angry breath, I pointed a finger at him, indignant. “You don’t know Stella. She doesn’t do drugs. She’s not like that!”

“Clearly you don’t know her well either, or else you would’ve known where the girl was all this time.”

Mom moved between us and wrapped an arm around me. “I guess now we just wait. Ben’s locked the doors, set the alarm, and called the cops. They’ll be watching the house. If she’s out there, they’ll find her and get her some help.”

Stella had looked scared and sick. I prayed I’d done the right thing by telling Mom she’d broken into the house. If anything bad happened to her after she’d left, I’d hate myself for not following her. Why would she run away from me? And what was wrong with her?

Ben softened his tone. “I know you’re worried about your door not locking, my dear. I’ll have the lock fixed tomorrow.”

“Do you want to sleep with me tonight, honey?” Mom rubbed her hands together. She was barefoot and probably freezing. I’d felt it in her icy touch.

My cheeks flushed with guilt. Mom had had trouble sleeping since Dad’s infidelity, and I snored. Being in her bed would only make things worse. “No thanks, but I won’t sleep in my room. Is there anywhere else in the house that locks?”

“What about George’s old room?” Mom whispered to Ramsey, turning her eyes, big and imploring, to him.

“Of course. Not a problem.”

Oh, hell no. I shook my head. Whacked-out Stella was bad enough. I’d be a corpse myself before I’d sleep in the room where I’d seen a ghost.

Mom gave me “the look,” but how could I explain I didn’t have a problem with George, per se? I tightened my robe around my shoulders. Maybe I should tell them about the ghost.

I glanced at Ramsey, who stifled a yawn behind his fist and looked like a complete dork in short baby blue pajamas, black socks, and old man slippers. His attitude toward Geoff and his flagrant favoritism for his dead son were unforgiveable, but did I want to reopen old wounds? Rose had said he’d suffered from the loss.

“She could always take Geoff’s room,” Ben offered sleepily, rubbing his eyelids with his thumb and index finger. “She’d be no inconvenience to us there. It’s in need of cleaning anyway, and the door most assuredly locks from the inside. Geoffrey insists on his privacy.”

So now I was an inconvenience?

The idea sounded both intriguing and appalling at the same time. I shook my head again. “I couldn’t do that. It might not bother you, Mr. Ramsey, but Geoff—”

“Nonsense. Perhaps you’ll be able to sleep through the night there…and so will we.”

I turned to my mother for help, but she was staring at the floor. Her eyes had big circles beneath them. Why hadn’t I noticed before? I sighed. “Okay. I’ll do it.”

After following the adults upstairs, I said goodnight. Sliding the bolt home on Geoff’s door, I felt several pounds of worry lift off me. Safe at last.

With Geoff’s possessions, his very essence, around me, the tension in my muscles unwound. Maybe I’d be able to sleep after all. As I touched the silken, crimson comforter, a smile spread across my face. Tonight I’m sleeping in Geoff’s bed.

More than anything, I longed to hear his voice, to tell him I’d seen Stella and she’d been in the house. If only I had his phone number. I wouldn’t dare ask his dad for it when he seemed so convinced Geoff would cause me problems.

Dorothy. She’d surely have it.

Ugh. It was the weekend. She would be gone by the time I got up in the morning.

What if he’d written it down somewhere? Doubtful. He’d taken his laptop when he’d moved out, of course, but the small chance he might’ve written his number on something drew me to his desk.

His old leather-bound books were still there. The Picture of Dorian Gray. Dante’s Inferno. Dracula. And one newer book without a title. I touched it gingerly, running my fingertips over the worn cover. It was a journal.

Ben had said Geoff reads his brother’s old journals—probably the reason Geoff insisted on his door locking or else the journals would’ve joined the photos hidden in my dresser.

The desk had a single drawer. I opened it and found a couple of ballpoint pens, several unlabeled DVDs, and a sheet of paper. I drew the paper out, hoping it would be something he’d filled out—a school form maybe—with his personal info and number. The paper was blank on one side, though, with a rough texture familiar to my touch. Sketch paper. The jagged edge gave me a queer feeling inside. I turned it over on the desk.

I knew it! My drawing from the Ramsey boat dock.

The hard penciled lines and shading formed the figure of Ben’s boat on the mooring line. A boring subject, really. Even my hag showed more talent. Certainly the boat picture wasn’t worth taking. Why hadn’t Geoff simply asked for it?

I was both flattered and annoyed.

“Why would I take a drawing?”

He’d never denied taking it. I laughed at his arrogance and my naïveté, and then I put the sketch back and closed the drawer. He could keep it.

Giving up on finding his number, I snatched the journal off the desk. It was time I got to know George Ramsey.

I climbed into the bed with the book in hand. Suppressing the slight guilt I felt, I reasoned that the journal’s author could no longer suffer embarrassment, and he might’ve even wanted to share his writings. Under the covers, I snuggled up against Geoff’s pillow, breathing in the lingering clean scent of cologne, shampoo, and Geoff, and opened the journal.

To George,
May you find the writer within.
Love, Dad

After reading the first few pages, I determined the book chronicled his senior year. Unlike the drama-filled diary I’d kept in the sixth grade, he’d crammed his pages with poems and haikus, free verse and raps. He titled some of his writings after favorite singers and guitarists, but a few pages were more personal.

A poem entitled Anguish in English described Mrs. Sutton’s classes perfectly. There were love sonnets for four different girls, only one whose name I recognized. Three short paragraphs on the Sea Islands caught my attention for their beauty, and I found myself reading closer, looking for local places I might recognize.

George had written a descriptive paragraph about the boat Ben had given him for his eighteenth birthday, and it detailed how George enjoyed parting the water beneath its bow. I found it ironic and sad that he’d met his end doing something he enjoyed so much. He’d titled the piece, “The Don Juan.”

My eyelids grew heavy. I flipped a couple of pages more and watched the print go blurry through my sleepy eyes. Drifting off to sleep, the name Don Juan teased my memory. Ben loved the Byron story, but that wasn’t what bothered me.

Suddenly, my eyes flew open with awareness and goose bumps broke on my arms. I threw the cover off, stumbled to the desk, and took my sketch out of the drawer.

Same boat, different name. The boat I’d drawn, Ramsey’s boat, wasn’t The Red Herring in my work. It was The Don Juan. The name had been changed, probably after the accident—a fact no one had ever shared with me.

I wasn’t drawing real life.

I was drawing the past.

All day Saturday, I drove around Pine Bluff and Hilton Head with my drawing supplies. Empty marshes, unused fields, and abandoned houses became my obsession—anything old I might sketch and reveal its former life.

I didn’t know if it was just me, my imagination, or maybe I needed to drink more Red Bull, but I wasn’t feeling Van Gogh at all. Could this be how Vincent felt when he hadn’t had his absinthe?

Where is my muse?

On the bridge leading off the big resort island, I spotted the sign for the Pinckney Island Wildlife Refuge. One last try, what the hell? My car was the only one in the refuge parking lot as I cut off the engine. The hiking information signs showed the island had a series of long and short routes through ponds, marsh, and woods. I chose one while ignoring the nearby historical marker—not wanting to influence my art.

I didn’t know the history of the place, so anything I drew correctly would be purely intuitive and not caused by preconceived ideas. The book I’d skimmed about local ghosts had already informed me that the area’s history was influenced by Native Americans, the Civil War, pirates, and European explorers, so my drawings could easily be bogus if they reflected any of those things.

Finding a fallow field along the trail, I plopped down on a bird-watching bench and started sketching. My hand worked quickly.

In my mind, three people eyed the sky fearfully as a storm gathered over the field where they worked. Fat raindrops splattered on the man’s straw hat, while two ladies endured the weather. I imagined the same moisture falling on the top of my head, a cool relief to the Indian summer afternoon. One of the women could only gather cotton from the tops of the plants because her belly was too swollen with a baby to bend low. Another woman followed her, laboring to collect from the bolls she’d skipped. Mosquitoes, awakened by the rain and overcast sky, attacked her bare arms as she reached into the bramble for the harvest.

I was so near, I could see the welts on her arms where she’d scratched at insect bites and could smell her unwashed skin. Can you see me too? Can you hear me if I speak? Feel my touch if I come close?

Can you touch me?

My excitement and curiosity drove me to sketch at a brisk pace. When I’d filled the page, I stuck my pencil behind my ear and held up my finished artwork. Still a field, but the picture told the story of the three workers bent over dried-up cotton plants. Long bags hung from their waists to drag the ground behind them.

Had someone grown cotton on the island? I’d bet money! The cotton pickers had been so real, but nothing but weeds grew in the clearing now.

My heart skipped. It was the first extraordinary thing I’d drawn all day. I sighed and wiped the sweat off my forehead with the neck of my T-shirt. Thank God it was a cotton field and not another hag…though even she would’ve been better than nothing.

I got up to head out of the refuge and felt a wave of regret.

I should’ve kept my old sketches.

But what good did this ability do me, or anyone? Drawing the past was a ridiculous gift. Someone needs saving? Here, I’ll draw what you did last week. See if that helps.

What could be more useless?

Geoff knew what I could do. The drawing of The Don Juan was proof, and I couldn’t wait to talk to him about it. I’d already tried looking up Geoff’s mom in the phone book at home. Her residence was unlisted, and her business phone went straight to voice mail.

At the parking lot, I got in my car, which had become a sauna in the short time I’d been sketching, and rolled down the windows. It was early, though. I didn’t have to be back until dark. I could go to the marina where I’d seen Carol before and maybe ask around to see if someone knew where she lived.

Before starting the car, I took my cell out of my pocket. The screen flashed. I’d missed a call during my hike. It was Mom’s number, so I called her back.

She answered on the third ring. “Hi, sweetie. I have good news. They’ve found Stella.”

Twenty minutes later, I arrived at the Coastal Hospital in Pine Bluff. The lady at the information desk said Stella was in critical care, and I went to find her.

Eugenia and Annabelle were in the waiting room, along with a middle-aged white man I assumed was her father. Stella had told me he was a trucker, and this man wore a white, collared shirt with a “Smiley’s Trucking” patch sewn on it. The three of them sat in the same seating area. He was on the phone, speaking low about some route into Orlando. The sisters had taken chairs, where they watched the hallway expectantly.

When they saw me, Annabelle nodded in greeting, while Eugenia frowned and took a big slug of the Coke she was drinking.

I joined them, feeling nervous. I knew the police had told them Stella had been in my house. They would have questions, and I wouldn’t have any answers.

“Hello, Chelsea.” Stella’s mom reached for me, a big grin on her face. “My baby’s here, and she’s gonna be just fine.”

I gave her a hug. “I’m so glad. I know you’ve been worried sick. How is she?”

Annabelle took my hands and squeezed them. Her bony thumbs rubbed the backs of my hands involuntarily as she spoke. “Not good.” Her eyes glittered with tears. “But they expect her to make a full recovery.”

“She’s dehydrated.” Eugenia shifted her weight in the narrow seat. “A sheriff’s deputy found her on the shoulder of the highway.”

“Was she walking? Hitchhiking?” How weird.

Annabelle’s hands tightened on mine. “Neither. She’d collapsed. There were bruises. They suspect a hit and run.”

I gave Mrs. Pellman another hug, and then the nurse came by. She told the ladies Stella was awake again and could have visitors. I hesitated as the women stood up, but Annabelle invited me to follow along with a wave. Mr. Pellman acknowledged us with a nod, remaining in the waiting room to finish his phone conversation.

Inside the critical care room, Stella had the place to herself with an empty bed beside her. Monitors and IVs were strung from her frail, bony arms, but she turned bright eyes to us as we gathered around.

I spoke softly. “Hey, girl. Your mom said I could come in, but I don’t want to bother you if you’d rather I go.”

Her lips—though cracked, chapped, and split—managed to form a smile. She rasped, “You’d leave me alone with these two? They’ve been in here twice already.”

I returned her smile and stroked her forehead. Her eyes were sunken, her face almost skeletal with lack of fluid. Aching for her injuries, I willed away the emotions that would tell her just how close she’d come to dying. “I don’t want to make you talk. You rest, and I’ll be back. I’m ungrounded.” I smirked.

“Chel—” Her voice broke, and she reached for me, keeping me at her side. I gingerly took her hand and folded my fingers around it, listening. “I don’t remember what happened to me…but Mom said I’d been in your house?”

I nodded. “In the middle of the night.”

“Girl, I hope I remember soon, because—” her mouth went slack and her lips trembled before she continued “—because I feel real scared for you. I think I was trying to warn you about somethin’.”

A shiver ran through me. Though I wanted to question her further, I didn’t want to wear her out. Her mouth could barely move, so it surely hurt her to speak.

Outside Stella’s room I walked the corridor alone, leaving the ladies to visit. I hoped to catch Mr. Pellman off his phone so I could talk to him, but in the waiting room, he stood in a group of men and women. Receiving hugs and handshakes, he was too busy with well-wishers for me to interrupt. I headed for the door with Stella’s warning echoing in my head, when I heard my name.

Lewis emerged from the group and caught up with me.

“Church van again?” I nodded at the people talking with Mr. Pellman.

“Yeah.” He rolled a shoulder. The action drew my attention to his athletic build, prominently displayed in a snug-fitting black thermal shirt. “Listen, Geoff thought you might be here. He wanted me to ask you for a favor.” His voice was chilly.

“You talked to him? Is he…how is he doing?” I bit my lip. Did Lewis know about the fight? The less people who knew, the better.

“He’s…the same.” His black eyes flashed. “By the way, he said to remind you that your paper is due tomorrow in English.”

I released a breath. “Right.” Of course, with everything else, I had forgotten. I pulled out my cell phone, encouraged by a new idea. “Could you give me his number? I might have to ask him some questions about the assignment.”

Lewis scowled. “You’re telling me Geoff hasn’t bothered to give you his number, and you want me to give it to you?”

Um, ri-ight. “Yeah. I see your point.” The angry drilling of my pulse made me grab his elbow. I tugged him into the corridor, not stopping until we reached the double doors of the critical care wing. Ignoring his surprised and affronted expression, I whispered, “Listen, I know you don’t like me, and I know you don’t trust me. But I care about Geoff, too, damn it! And obviously he cares at least a little about me. So could you knock off some of the ice and be halfway polite?”

He huffed, crossing his arms over his chest, and averted his face. A vein in his muscular neck flickered under his mahogany skin. If anything, my words seemed to make him more antagonistic.

I closed my eyes and counted to ten. Then I tried again, speaking in a softer voice. “You’re a good friend. I can tell. And I know you don’t want to give his number out if he doesn’t want it given out. But I have something very important to tell him.”

His eyes cut to me, then slid away. The softer, reasonable side of him I believed existed hid behind the rigid curve of his clean-shaven, unyielding jaw. I was getting nowhere.

“Just please tell him I know about the boat sketch…and I’m drawing more. That’s all you need to say.” I put my phone back in my pocket.

My request drew those dark resentful eyes back to mine, and he sighed. “If it’s important for Geoff to know, I’ll tell him.” Vulnerability flickered in his expression before he hid it behind a blank wall. “Don’t you wanna know what the favor is?”

“Of course.”

The door behind us swung open, and a man in navy scrubs walked past with a friendly nod.

When he was gone, Lewis whispered, “In his office, Ramsey keeps an appointment book beside his computer. His dad’s a low-tech guy, writes shit down, doesn’t use his smartphone for contacts and meetings.”

I nodded. Ben even made my mom look like a computer genius—which she wasn’t.

“Find out who he’s meeting with this week and when.”

“Okay. But why? What’s going on?”

“Geoff overheard Carol talking to somebody about my uncle’s place, and she wasn’t recommending the margaritas and conch fritters.”

“Oh no.” I chewed on my thumb. Poor Flint. “I overheard Ben talking to someone on the phone last Wednesday. He said they needed to ‘sell the property or pay the taxes.’” It wouldn’t take many condos on the island to force his property taxes to skyrocket to the point where he could no longer keep up.

Lewis grimaced. “He didn’t tell me. Guess he didn’t want me to worry about it.”

The impact of losing Flint’s would be devastating to the Gullah community. It was the only store. If another grocery store or restaurant took its place, the proprietors could increase the prices on food and goods, and the locals would no longer be able to afford to shop there. They’d be driven to sell.

To the Ramseys.

“So it’s up to you. You gonna help us or sit back and watch Ramsey take advantage of people?” His acidic tone burned me.

I dug my keys out of my pocket. “Of course I’ll try to help Flint. I may live with Ben—I have to—but I don’t agree with his business practices.”

Doubt furrowed Lewis’s brow. His coming to the hospital to ask me for a favor on Geoff’s behalf was no easy request for him to make, and if I blew this, he would be eager to tell Geoff “I told you so.” I’d do my best not to give him the satisfaction.

“Lewis?” A man from the group of church visitors peered at us around the corner from the waiting room. He nodded at me, and a wide, enthusiastic smile spread across his face. “Excuse me, but uh, Lewis, when you’re done mackin’ on this pretty young lady, you can go visit Stella with Sister Eugenia.”

The color in Lewis’s cheekbones leeched away as the man ducked back into the waiting room, chuckling.

As the death-knell for my pending assignment clanged ominously in my mind, I hugged my battered spiral notebook to my chest and tapped on Ramsey’s office door. The research paper made as good an excuse as any to pay a visit to Mephistopheles in his lair.

He answered, “What-t-t-t?”

My fragile hope of finding the room empty burst like a soap bubble. If the past several days were any indication, he and my mom would be holed up in the room for hours if they were there so early in the evening.

I pushed the door open and closed it softly behind me. The top of his head was barely visible behind the giant monitor of his computer. Mom was curled up in a wingback, her feet tucked under her, her hair loose and wavy on her shoulders, her tired gaze mesmerized by the same computer screen.

“It’s just me.” I waved and smiled sweetly when he peeked up.

He grunted.

“Chelsea,” Mom said as she yawned. Her head rested against the side of the chair, as if she couldn’t hold it up any longer, blinking sleepily. “You shouldn’t be here.”

Yeah, I love you too, Mom. My friend is going to be okay. Thanks for asking. What was it about Ramsey that made everyone around him act like a jerk, too?

“I know, Mom, and I would never intentionally interrupt the writing process, but this is an emergency.” I held up the notebook and pen.

Ben leaned back, and his leather chair creaked. His face followed me, eyes hidden behind the white glare of the word processing screen reflecting off his glasses.

What the hell was Mom even doing there? Certainly not writing anything. I wanted to snap at them both, to tell her to go to bed and tell him to give her the break she obviously needed.

But that wasn’t why I was there. I rallied, controlling my temper. I’m here for Flint, remember? I can do this for him and Geoff.

Inching closer, I looked at the inside of the room for the first time. Surely the touches of an interior decorator, the walls were covered in a mixture of eclectic antiques, modern paintings, and old oval portraits.

I twiddled my pen, feeling as out of place and anxious as a mouse in a lion’s den. “My paper is due, Mr. Ramsey, and I need a little more info. I’m a page short. Do you mind if I ask a few more questions?”

Tilting back casually, he laced his fingers over his chest and regarded me with a bemused smile. “Fire away, my dear. Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus. I’m sure you’ve already included Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s well-known beliefs: questioning the progress of science; rebellion against religion, society, politics, and traditional values, etc; oh, and of course her husband’s advocacy for free love.”

“Uh, yeah. Got all that.” Crap, gotta remember those things when I get back to my computer. I opened my notebook and sidled closer, standing at the corner of his desk. The appointment book was where Lewis had said it would be, open beside the keyboard. I clicked my pen open and spouted off one of Sutton’s required questions. “In your opinion, what was the biggest impact of the author’s writing on her peers and successors?”

He pursed his lips and paused in thought before he spoke. “That would be difficult to say. In her lifetime, she was misunderstood as a writer. Her contemporaries noted the fine writing of her popular novel, but they were so blinded by the notoriety of her radical relationship with her husband—she was what you would call a ‘homewrecker’ nowadays—that they didn’t recognize the thoughtful political commentary.”

“So what you’re saying is she was like a reality TV star?” His head made a puppy-dog tilt, so I helped him out, explaining, “Famous for being famous.”

“Ah, yes. Just so.” He smiled again. “Her commitment and value to the literary world weren’t appreciated until many years later. Now her work eclipses her male counterparts’.”

Score one point for my gender. “It’s the same for lots of women in art history, too, overshadowed by male artists. Some of the most talented ones worked as apprentices to men.”

I pointed at his monitor with my pen, and his gaze followed. “Is your mystery writing inspired by Frankenstein?” I leaned over the open book. It was turned to the current week, and two days had entries.

“This? This is my memoir.” With the stroke of a key, he closed the screen.

I searched for another way to distract him, when the sound of glass breaking made me jump and wheel around.

“Oh!” Mom leaned out of her chair over the broken shards of a wine glass she must’ve been reaching for. A purplish red stain oozed across the wood floor onto the Oriental rug.

“Leave it, m’dear. The damage is already done.” He got up, grabbing a wastebasket on his way to help her. “You’re tired. Here, you’ll cut yourself.”

They bent over the glass to pick up the pieces, and Mom laughed, light and playful over the clinking of the breakage in the trash. I tore my eyes away from the disgusting sight of them to take another peek at the appointments. The school dean’s name was scratched in the box for Monday, along with the circled name Prometheus, and on Saturday, the initials Y.S. and Nelson Meyers were written and underlined as significant. I committed the time and names to memory, but prayed we were wrong.