The Bones of Marietta Read online

  THE BONES OF MARIETTA

  Marietta Series

  Book One

  By M.L. Bullock

  Text copyright ©2021 Monica Bullock

  All rights reserved.

  Dedication

  For Stella, Jesse and Ryan.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue—Mary Fairbanks

  Chapter One—Ashland

  Chapter Two—Carrie Jo

  Chapter Three—Mary

  Chapter Four—Carrie Jo

  Chapter Five—Lily

  Chapter Six—Ashland

  Chapter Seven—Mary

  Chapter Eight—Carrie Jo

  Chapter Nine—Lily

  Chapter Ten—Ashland

  Chapter Eleven—Mary

  Chapter Twelve—Lily

  Chapter Thirteen—Mary

  Chapter Fourteen—Carrie Jo

  Chapter Fifteen—Mary

  Chapter Sixteen—Carrie Jo

  Epilogue—Carrie Jo

  Immortal Beloved

  My angel, my very self…

  Why this profound sorrow when necessity speaks?

  Can our love endure without sacrifices,

  Without our demanding everything from one another;

  Can you alter the fact that you are not wholly mine,

  That I am not wholly yours?

  Dear God, look at Nature in all her beauty

  And set your heart at rest about what must be

  Love demands all, and rightly so…

  No doubt we shall meet soon;

  And today also time fails me to tell you of the thoughts

  Which during these last few days I have been revolving about my life

  If our hearts were always closely united,

  I would certainly entertain no such thoughts.

  My heart overflows with a longing to tell you so many things

  Oh—there are moments when I find that speech is quite inadequate!

  Be cheerful—and be forever my faithful, my only sweetheart, my all, as I am yours.

  The gods must send us everything else, whatever must and shall be our fate—your faithful Ludwig.

  Even when I am in bed my thoughts rush to you,

  My immortal beloved, now and then joyfully, then again sadly,

  Waiting to know whether Fate will hear our prayer

  To face life, I must live altogether with you or never see you…

  Oh God, why must one be separated from her who is so dear.

  Yet my life in Vienna at present is a miserable life

  Your love has made me both the happiest and unhappiest of mortals…

  Ludwig Von Beethoven

  July 7, 1812

  Prologue—Mary Fairbanks

  1848

  I stepped out of the chilly coach and descended into the freezing darkness. My worn boot crackled as it touched the packed snow. My destination appeared as unimpressive as my departure point, Summit, West Virginia. Although it had an exotic name, Biloxi, Mississippi, lacked urban sophistication too. Wooden sidewalks, rickety facades nailed to the front of poorly built buildings. I had an eye for this sort of thing, as my father had been a master carpenter. Sadly, this place was nothing more than a clump of wilderness with poor lighting and all the unpleasant smells that accompanied unwashed humanity. Did they slosh urine in the streets here too? I cast a watchful eye above me, but the building behind me was shrouded in shadow.

  The other travelers departed without any goodbyes. We had not so much as exchanged pleasantries during our trip, so I had no idea what their names were. That was simply fine with me—easier to keep a low profile and avoid questions that may expose me later. Managing light conversation had never been my strong suit. I preferred discourses on interesting subjects, not idle chitchat.

  Instead of exchanging pleasantries with absolute strangers, I spent the hours memorizing all the details I could remember about Mary Fairbanks. I could not fail in my recollection. I had stolen her future, taken it for my own. I chewed on my fingernail, a worrying habit of mine, and ignored the disapproving looks of the only other woman in our party. Eventually I met her stare with one of my own, and after a brief eye roll, she turned her attention to the opposite window.

  My plan was to hide my accent, as best I could, and assume the identity that I had stolen without being discovered. Mary Fairbanks was not an Irishwoman, but in my letters, I never spoke about my heritage—or more precisely, Mary’s heritage. It would be difficult, but I would explain it if pressed. I should not like to be found out as a criminal. At least until I was wed. That was the goal here, to marry John Lancaster. I had fallen in love with him, you see. I do not know how such a thing could be possible, but it was a fact.

  The strangest thing was how accidental it all had been—from the first letter to his proposal. Yes. What I had done was nothing less than criminal, but I felt little remorse for seizing the opportunity.

  Just as he promised, John Lamar Lancaster sent a coach ticket and spending money for the journey. This would not be the longest journey I had made, but it would still be many days, depending on the weather. Whatever the cost, I would be Mrs. John Lancaster.

  Yes, I had every intention of marrying that fine man. I would have a happy life. Funny to think that my former employer, Mary Fairbanks, thought she would snare him, rob him blind, no doubt. No woman like her could ever become a good wife. Thankfully, she had a short attention span and did not like to write. After the third letter John sent, she didn’t even bother reading them. Mary was content to let me “run a game” on the unsuspecting Mr. Lancaster, but it was not a game to me. He and I were meant to be together. He was my path to happiness.

  My prose, my answers intrigued him. He had fallen in love with me, he declared finally. Mary thought the whole thing was very funny in a crude sort of way. If I had allowed her to follow through, she would have shamed him. He would have had a whore for a wife.

  I was no whore.

  By the time I slid the ticket into my dress pocket and walked down that first flight of steps, I was resolved to this course of action. Mary Fairbanks was a drunkard, an unashamed fool—a blemish on society. No two people were more dissimilar than the two of us.

  Bad things happened to women like me in Summit. Eventually, I would have no choice; Mary made that clear. She expected me to join her in her ill reputes, to follow in her high-heeled boots and become one of the many cast-off prostitutes that littered the streets of Summit. It did not take long for the dirty hands of the coal miners to stain a woman. I had seen many pretty young women come to Summit and never leave.

  Except in a hearse. The bloody stains the women left behind would last far longer than any remembrance of them. The most pitiful of them, the least fair, the weak-eyed or toothless serviced the poorest of the coal miners. They disappeared into those pits and never reemerged. I shuddered at the thought. Not only would they die, but their souls would be stained forever. I believed we had a soul. Mine was not perfect, but I wanted to keep it as clean as possible.

  The fight to keep my virtue had been truly dreadful, but I was coming to John Lancaster a virgin. Thankfully, I excelled at drinking games. Raised on rye whiskey, I could defeat even the thirstiest drunkard.

  For as long as I can remember, I have been small of stature. Smaller than most. Even at eighteen, I measured slightly over four feet tall and had no mature feminine attributes. I looked more like a doll, like the paper dolls I loved to cut and snip. The oldest of five children, I never grew tall and spindly like my brothers. My mother often joked that I was a changeling born of the fairy folks, traded at birth for the real Vienna Fitzgerald, who was no doubt as fair and as tall as my siblings. I was never offended by my mother’s attempts at humor. I thought my
brothers were great fools, although of a better sort than these greedy, lascivious Americans. You are better than that, Vienna.

  Forget that name! You are Mary Fairbanks, and this is your one chance for happiness. Finally, you’ll have your lucky break!

  Although I am small of frame, I do have many good qualities, I reminded myself as I rode for hours in the rickety coach. I reviewed each one of them so I would know what to say if things turned bad and I had to make a case for clemency.

  Yes, I am clever, resilient and hardworking; these were attributes that have helped me in the past. However, like most young women, there were times when I would have traded all those attributes for corn silk hair, an ample bosom and luminous blue eyes.

  Rather than spend my life sulking over my short stature and general lack of beauty, I chose to enjoy the obscurity my height offered me. People tended to overlook me, to speak of things that they should not, all because I was small and rather childlike. For reasons beyond me, adults tended to talk about the most atrocious things in the presence of children. Or childlike people. That was me, an eternal child.

  “Some men,” Mary Fairbanks would whisper in the darkness, “would give a gold mine to spend the night with someone like you, Vienna.” Meaning childlike, I assumed. Inexperienced. Helpless. She always appeared green with envy while telling me this information. The thought of lying with any man repulsed me.

  I would do so only out of necessity. Only if I married. This man, this John Lamar Lancaster, he would expect such intimacies. But for marriage, to a good man, it seemed a fair trade. I have never been a slave to my emotions or physical impulses, and I would not start now. However, the real Mary Fairbanks cared nothing about her self-respect or dignity. She was for all intents and purposes a whore and not a particularly good one. She got ripped off often and beaten on occasion, and she drank so much that she was easily robbed after her work.

  I met her almost a year before I coldly robbed her myself, taking her ticket to her new life with me. I betrayed her too. It was freeing to leave that life behind.

  “Vienna, dear, be a lamb and roll me a cigarette or two. Your little fingers roll the tightest cigarettes,” she would always say. I did that every day between washing her clothes and cooking her meals. “Think about how rich we would be if you helped out.” To her, “helping out” meant giving my life to prostitution. When she was sober, I politely refused. Later, when she was completely sotted, she would smack me with her hand or hit me with her hairbrush, but nothing would convince me to take up her profession. Not even the threat of poverty or homelessness. No matter how hard she beat me, I would never do that. My poor dead mother would roll over in her grave.

  Besides, it all seemed so foolish. And from what I had witnessed, coupling with a man looked uncomfortable and unpleasant. I had no desire to end up disease-ridden or pregnant or worse—dead. Despite my disdain for Mary’s occupation, she was why I survived that first winter here in Summit, West Virginia. I had been promised work, coming to Summit by way of a newspaper advertisement. A store needed “willing hands,” but by the time I arrived, there was no job for me. The store burned to the ground a week before I arrived. I applied for other positions, but it was always the same.

  “Go home. You are too small for this kind of work. How can you possibly sew with those tiny fingers? You are absolutely grimy. I can see the grime from here.” The woman had been rude beyond words. I was cleaner than most, my nails and hands impeccable, but there was no persuading her. I left heartbroken, disappointed and hungry. So very hungry.

  And then I met Mary.

  She had been patient at first, but her expectations were becoming more aggressive. I would not be able to say no to her forever, hence my need for a hasty departure. And then it all came together. The idea, then a plan and then the opportunity.

  Yes, it did seem as if fate once again smiled upon me! I had to take the bull by the horns. Make fortune work for me. Yes. Fortune would continue to lead me to the happy life I dreamed of so long ago in Ireland. It was the luck of the Irish that I trusted in, that and my ability to persevere.

  Snow began to fall as I stood clutching my black bag. The others were gone. I was all alone. I tucked my hat down over my ears and waited. Surely whoever expected me would arrive soon.

  Where are you, John Lancaster? Where are you? You cannot leave me here. Please, let this be real. Let this all be real. I have risked everything. Everything! What else is there for me?

  But no one stepped out of the darkness to claim me. A flickering lamp above the sidewalk did not offer me much light, but it was enough to see that I was by myself.

  “John Lancaster? Mr. Lancaster?” I whispered into the crisp air. The only answer was a heavy falling of snow.

  All the world grew silent.

  Chapter One—Ashland

  Present Day

  Today was the day. I could not wait to see our child. A son or daughter. I could not begin to guess which it would be. Did I care? Okay, maybe a little. To have a little Carrie Jo running around, it seemed only right. What would my mother think about this? She would have loved every minute of it. I missed her lately, missed her a lot. Even though she had never met my son or even my wife, I sometimes sensed her around me. Felt her touch on my shoulder when I was in between awake and asleep. I often smelled her familiar perfume around Seven Sisters, a place she loved more than me. At least that’s what I believed when I was a young boy.

  When I was a child, we always came back to this place. Mother knew there were ghosts at Seven Sisters. She wanted to contact the spirits that roamed there, but I had been the one to see them. She wanted to see the ghosts, but I witnessed the apparition.

  I had been the one to meet the beautiful yet snakelike Isla Beaumont, and so my life of seeing ghosts began. I had only been a child, but the ghost of Isla did not have any qualms about seducing a child. It did not happen, thankfully. I sensed the evil behind her lovely face. She blew her sweet breath in my face; I could smell lemonade and honey, but there was also a sour note of death. Funny that I should know what death smelled like. I had not experienced it before, or at least had not witnessed it for myself. But my soul knew, and it screamed the alarm bell.

  At least now Seven Sisters was empty of all those spirits, or more accurately empty of anything dark and evil. It was a shame that they all left, the good and the bad.

  Yes, I found myself missing my mother quite a bit lately. Sadly, for all the ghosts I did see, I never saw hers. Carrie Jo had a vision of her a few years ago, but me? Nothing. I wished I could. I wished that with all my heart. But wishing would not make it happen. I used to wander the gardens thinking about her, hoping to catch a glimpse of Mother’s gleaming blonde and white hair. Hoping to see her elegant smile and smart dress, with her favorite string of pearls around her neck. It did not happen often.

  Why so glum, Ashland? You have a beautiful, growing family.

  “Are you sure you want to do this, Lily Bean?” I asked hopefully. “It might seem kind of strange for someone your age.”

  “My age? Why? It’s just technology, Uncle Ash.”

  I did not know how to counter that argument. Instead, I offered a sigh of retreat. I agreed with Carrie Jo that it was important to include Lily in our family’s expansion, as much as Lily was comfortable with. Maybe I was treating her like a baby. I never wanted my niece to feel like she was unimportant to us because she wasn’t our biological child. We didn’t want her to get the idea that the baby would take her place in our hearts. I really didn’t think we had much to worry about in that regard because Lily knew we loved her like she was our own. We had adopted her, after all.

  “Okay, you guys. I’m not a baby. It’s not like I am going to watch you give birth, Aunt CJ. It’s just an ultrasound.”

  Carrie Jo and I glanced at each other. Lily was just barely a teenager, but she had a full-blown teenager attitude. It was not so long ago that I had those same angsty feelings. And of all of us, she deserved to be quite angry
with the world. But she usually wasn’t this sarcastic. Carrie Jo was right. Despite all of Lily’s big talk, something was going on inside that head of hers.

  The technician led the three of us back to the dimly lit room. It had been a long time since I witnessed an ultrasound. I knew what to expect, but I was so excited to have another child. It was always a bit surreal until you got to hold the baby. Would it be a her or a him? I did not care anymore. Not really. Did I? Why was I so nervous?

  “Okay, Mrs. Stuart, climb up on the table and get comfy. We will get this session started. You guys can sit in those seats. You will have a great view.”

  I squeezed Lily’s hand briefly as we took our seats. Carrie Jo smiled at us, and I grinned back. The technician prepared Carrie Jo’s stomach for the ultrasound while the nurse chitchatted with her. She asked her how she was feeling and whether she had felt any movement. Was she singing or talking to the baby? The setup seemed to take forever even though it was actually only a few minutes. I impatiently waited for the first look at our new baby. What a miracle! Babies were nothing less than little miracles.

  I wished AJ could be here, but he was too little to appreciate any of it. He would not enjoy sitting still even for a few minutes. My son was the busiest kid in Mobile, Alabama.

  Wow! This was really happening. And as much as I wanted to be a dad again, I did not feel ready. Carrie Jo was right. I hadn’t really thought this through. Late-night bottles, diaper changes, doctor’s appointments. Sleeplessness. Endless sleeplessness.

  Oh, crap. Weird how that worked. Too late now. The baby would be here soon.

  The technician turned up the volume and slid the wand over Carrie Jo’s gel-covered belly. We immediately began to hear the baby’s quick heartbeat.

  Lily squealed like the child she truly was and gave Carrie Jo two thumbs up. “Oh my God! That is so cool! That’s the baby, right? Look at that! I see eyes and…is that a finger? How sweet!” So much for being cool, calm and distant.