Dreams of Idlewood Read online

  “Pizza?”

  “Babe, it was a joke.” With a worried tone, he continued, “You having a good time in Gulf Shores?”

  I smiled at his ability to see right through whatever façade I tried to slap up. I wasn’t good at faking a happy mood. But I was happy, wasn’t I? “Let’s see. I have a nice sunburn, to be followed by a farmer’s tan. I broke a flip-flop. And I ate my weight in shrimp. All in all, I’d say my first trip to the Shrimp Festival was a complete success.”

  “How about the presentation? Hey, kid—cut that out,” he said with a laugh. “Daddy doesn’t need a bath right now.”

  “It was hardly a presentation. Really informal setting, and it wasn’t at the convention center like we thought it would be. Last minute-change of plans. I showed the pictures and answered questions. There were more people there than I expected, and I left with a few dozen business cards. Lots of interest. You sure you want to do this? Restoring one old plantation is a lot of work—as you know. Can you imagine doing that nonstop?” That was responsible Carrie Jo speaking now. She was always a party pooper. The truth was I was just as excited as my husband, but I guess I wanted a little assurance, for us both.

  “We’re doing this together, right?”

  “Yep, always together, Ashland. I love you, by the way. Thanks for this time with my mother. It was a nice surprise.”

  “Oh, I’m full of surprises.”

  I laughed at that. “Not in front of AJ!” I joked. Then the line went dead again, and a weird clicking sound filled my ear. Before I could hang up and redial, the whispers returned. One voice sounded familiar, but I could not quite identify it. It was as if whoever was speaking was being intentionally vague. Then the line went truly dead. I hung up and picked up the receiver again multiple times, but there was nothing there now. Not even a dial tone. My cell had died earlier and was charging in the car. Maybe now it had enough juice to call home. I turned to find my mother’s fearful face staring at me.

  “What’s wrong? And don’t lie to me, Carrie Jo. I can tell something is wrong. Is it the ghosts? What do we do?” She was getting hysterical, and I squeezed her hand comfortingly. Her face paled, despite the ton of sun she’d gotten earlier.

  “There’s nothing to do. I don’t know who it was. It’s going to be okay. I promise. Would you like some water? Here—come sit here.” I patted a pink pleather chair and dug around our mini fridge for a bottle of water. I found one, cracked it open and sat across from her at the glass-topped rattan table.

  “I don’t know how you handle it all the time. I never could.”

  I froze. Did she mean to tell me that? Might as well ask. “You have experience with ghosts, Momma?”

  She nodded as she slid the towel from her hair and pressed her hand to her face. “Only in my dreams.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me? I could have—I mean, we could have helped one another.”

  She took a big swig of water, and we both jumped as the hotel phone rang. With shaking hands I picked it up. “Hello?”

  It was Ashland making sure I was okay. I assured him I was, talked to baby AJ and told him good night and promised to see them both tomorrow afternoon. “Take your time, babe. We’re going to play ball at Medal of Honor Park tomorrow.”

  “Have fun! Love you!”

  “You too! See you, Mommy.”

  AJ gave me a raspberry, and I hung up. “How about we order a fruity drink and something light to eat from room service?”

  “Yes, let’s do that.” Then she leaned back with a sigh. “You must hate me—I have been so…unreliable. I left you alone to handle all this, but I didn’t know what to do. I still don’t. You know more about all this than I do, and you didn’t have anyone to guide you. I guess we do need to get it all out in the open. I’ve put this off for too long already.”

  I couldn’t believe my ears. Was I ready for this? Did I want to know? What if knowing destroyed our relationship? I didn’t want to lose what we had now.

  She must have noticed my hesitation. She said, “Why don’t you take your shower. I’ll call our order in.”

  “All right.” I grabbed soft cotton pajama shorts and my favorite Snoopy t-shirt, then went into the bathroom and closed the door behind me.

  I could hardly believe it. In a few minutes I’d finally have the answers to my “why” questions. I’d know who my father was, and maybe I’d learn something about Chance Jardine.

  It was time to hear it all, wasn’t it? I washed the sweat off my body, shampooed my hair and skipped the conditioner. I was anxious to hear what Momma had to say before she changed her mind. Thirty minutes later, we were finishing our dinner (although there were no fruity drinks) and I was feeling even more anxious.

  “I don’t know where to begin,” she said. I slid the plate to the side and waited for her to sort her thoughts out. Neither of us ate much, and I felt the tension between us rising. For a second, I had a mean thought: Well, I’m not going to help you explain yourself. But like the therapist said, it was best not to confront her with my own feelings at this stage of the healing process. That made sense to me, and I didn’t want to be a conduit for further hurt. Betrayal, bitterness, the vestiges of a childhood with a mother wavering on the edge of a complete mental breakdown. Yep, I had issues.

  But the woman who’d done that wasn’t the woman who sat across from me now. My mother wasn’t that person anymore. And for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out how she’d managed to climb out of that deep dark hole of depression. Or whatever it had been. My insides flipped remembering her dreams. She’d climbed in the bed with me once in a while when I was a child, and I could see her dreams. Could she see mine? Her dreams were filled with bare trees, slithering snakes and empty houses. One particularly frightening night, I’d seen her screaming and wrapped in snakes, but there’d been nothing I could do to help her. The vicious things hissed and snapped at me if I tried to reach for her or help her. I’d screamed myself awake and had run away to cry somewhere alone. As a kid, I simultaneously hated her and felt as if I’d let her down.

  “If you aren’t ready to do this, it’s okay,” I said sincerely. Yes, there were many questions, and I did have unexplored wells of anger, but if finding answers meant losing her, I didn’t want to know. I couldn’t lose her again. I’d rather never have answers than lose this relationship my Momma and I had worked to build.

  “I can dream walk too, Carrie Jo, but I guess you know that now. That’s what my aunt and grandmother used to call it, dream walking.”

  I whispered it back to her. “Dream walking?”

  “I suppose there’s a fancier name for it, but my family wasn’t very educated, at least not formally. We didn’t know what else to call it. Pauline, my grandmother, your great-grandmother called it dream walking, so we all did. And she was the strongest one of us, until you were born. People would come from all over the state to ask her things. If someone went missing, people would show up at the house, begging her to come with them to dream walk their property to find whoever or whatever it was that had been lost or missing. Sometime she would go, sometimes she wouldn’t. I never understood how she made those decisions, but she was a woman who kept her own mind about things.”

  “Do you have pictures of her?”

  “No, I’m sorry. I don’t. My mother lost everything in the house fire. Including all those old photos. I wish that wasn’t the case. You remind me of her in more ways than one.”

  “Really?”

  She nodded and took a sip of her water. “One night, a man came to the house. A big man, I’ll never forget how tall he was, probably the tallest man I’d ever seen. I was never allowed to sit in on these requests, but I always spied, like any kid.” With a nostalgic half-smile, she continued, “Grandma Pauline left one night and never came back. After that, my mother moved us out of the old house and we traveled around awhile. My father died in the war. I really can’t remember him.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “Y
ou don’t have to be. You probably hate me for keeping you from your father, but maybe you’ll hate me less when you know everything.” She covered her mouth with her hand, and I could tell she was on the verge of tears.

  I squeezed her hand. “I don’t hate you.”

  She seemed relieved at my answer. “I guess it’s time to be honest and let the chips fall where they may. I loved Jude Everett from the first day I met him. He worked at the bookshop around the corner from my house. He was five years older than me. Dating him seemed wild, risky. At least for me. I never strayed too far from the fold as a teenager. Jude and I had some good times together, until we got married. Until I saw his dreams.” She sobbed now, and I went and got the box of tissues from the bedside table.

  I sat back down, handed her a few tissues and studied her face. “What did you see, Momma?”

  “Terrible things. Things I could never tell a living soul. But he never knew I could see him doing those terrible things, not at first. The first time I saw what he did, I thought I was sick, had a fever. I wanted to believe anything but the truth. Anything but that. Then I saw it again. In gory detail. It broke my heart. Still I didn’t say anything. I kept quiet until I couldn’t anymore. I was so afraid. If you’d seen what I had seen…”

  Great. I finally get to hear something about my dad, only to find out he was evil. “That is horrible, I can’t imagine what that was like.” With her hands on her face she shook her head. I could sense her fear even after all this time. “Well, let’s back up a little. Tell me the good stuff first. What did you like about him? You know, when you first met him.”

  She nodded and blew her nose. “When I first met him Jude was patient and thoughtful; always so helpful when I came into the store. He’d put books back for me. As soon as I walked in he’d say, ‘I’ve got something special for you, Dee.’ He was not Casanova handsome, but he was attractive. He had a nice voice too. All that stuff matters when you’re seventeen.”

  “Where was he from? The same town as you? Denton Falls?”

  “I don’t think so. I never really knew. He told me so many half-truths I couldn’t be sure. I’m sorry.” Then she snapped her fingers. “But I do have a picture of him. I managed to save a few pictures.” She dug in her denim purse and produced a small envelope. There were several photos inside, yellow and curled at the edges.

  She handed me one of a man holding a baby.

  “Is that me? Is that my father?”

  “Yes, that’s you and Jude.”

  I blinked and stared at the face, the very familiar eyes, the curly brown hair. “I have to know what you saw, Momma. I have to know.”

  “Carrie Jo, you wouldn’t thank me for telling you. I can’t tell you. Please don’t ask me to.” Her voice quivered, and I relented.

  “Okay, I’m sorry for pushing you. I’m grateful for any information you want to share. Please understand how curious I am. And trust me, I’ve seen evil. If you change your mind, I can handle it, Momma. Don’t you think I should know?”

  “No, I don’t. I don’t think even I should know. I wish I had never met him, and I’m sorry he’s your father. I should have done better for you; I should have done better for Chance. But I can’t change the past, CJ.” She started crying again, and I flinched at hearing Chance’s name.

  “So he’s real? I have a brother? Is he my brother?”

  “Oh yes, he is very real, Carrie Jo, and he loved you so much.” She handed me another picture. “This one is your brother. Look how alike you are. Same eyes, curly hair. Such pretty babies.”

  I couldn’t believe my eyes. I just blinked at the picture as she continued, “One day I came home from work, and he was gone with your father. Jude had taken you to my mother’s, and then he left with Chance. He didn’t want us to see what he was doing, Carrie Jo. I could see who he was, who he really was under that sweet smile and quiet manner. We could dream about what he did. And he couldn’t have that.”

  “And what about my brother. What happened to him?”

  “I wish I knew. I think about him every day. I let him down. I let him down! I should have left when I saw that first nightmare. What Jude did was evil. I tried to find Chance, I wanted to find him, but I couldn’t. I dragged us from town to town following his trail. The police wouldn’t help me. They thought I was a nut, even when I described the crime scenes. Then when they found the…evidence, they suspected me. I told them the truth, Carrie Jo, but they wouldn’t believe me and I couldn’t convince them to. Even my mother turned her back on me. She never liked Jude, and I think she wanted to punish me for disobeying her to be with him. It all sounds so fantastic, even to my own ears.”

  I studied my father’s face again and listened to her words. The sensation was like shockwaves washing over me. “Crime scenes?”

  “Please don’t ask me anything else. I can’t do it, I just can’t.” She began sobbing again, and I squatted down in front of her and held her.

  “Hey. It’s okay, Momma. It’s going to be okay. We’re your family, we love you.” I hugged her tight, and she clung to me and wept. I cried too, but I didn’t let myself get out of control. She didn’t need that. Neither did I. “What do you say we go home? It’s only an hour’s drive.”

  “Yes, I would like that. Are you sure you don’t mind cutting our trip short?”

  “No, I think it’s time to go home. It is home now, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, it is home. Do you regret my coming to find you, Carrie Jo?”

  “Never. And Baby Boy loves you. We all do.” I hugged her one last time, and then we packed up our souvenirs and suitcases and headed back to Mobile. It was dark out, but I wasn’t the least bit tired. I was ready to go home and get started on my search.

  I had to find my little brother.

  Chapter Four – Rachel

  “Angus, I can’t do that. It’s my job you’re talking about. If I got busted being at Idlewood when I shouldn’t be, especially as part of a ghost hunting team, I’d get canned.” I brushed the hairspray out of my hair, gave him a disapproving look in the hallway mirror and stalked off to the living room. He wasn’t far behind. “Correction: It’s not just my job, it’s my business now. I can’t believe you are really asking me to do this.”

  “What? You said it yourself, you aren’t just an employee anymore. Now you’re a shareholder. You have every right in the world to be on that property. And you can’t say you aren’t a little curious, Rachel. You’ve got ghost hunting skills of your own. You are a sensitive! If we went just for a little while tonight, I’m sure we’d see something after all the activity in the house today. I don’t need to call Eric in on this, just you and me.”

  “You want to creep around Idlewood in the pitch black hoping to find a ghost. You know that place has a presence, and yet you want to go poke it in the eye? Let’s compromise. I’ll let you poke around tomorrow after work.”

  “The best time to hunt ghosts is at night.”

  I flopped on the couch next to him and tossed the television remote in the empty space between us. After a long night of stomping around in a horrid dress and smiling constantly, I was ready to veg out on the couch. But apparently Angus had other plans. I knew it wasn’t a great idea to invite him to tonight’s event. That’s why I didn’t! I wished Detra Ann had asked me first. Angus and his buddy Eric were obsessed with ghost hunting the grounds at Idlewood, and I was obsessed with Angus. Did he feel the same way about me? I seriously doubted it now. I mean, here I was, here he was. We were in the house by ourselves. I even tidied up my bedroom before I took off tonight, you know, just in case we met up afterwards, but he didn’t seem to care or even make the tiniest move on me. And how had he kept his invite to Idlewood a secret?

  “That was a one-time deal. Trinket is at rest, and I want it to stay that way. She doesn’t deserve a bunch of folks stomping around her grave. Besides, how can we be sure that wasn’t just a fluke? I haven’t seen much of anything since then, except that thing. I want to keep it that way.�
��

  “But how can you be sure? And what about the Shadow Man? Are you going to tell me that he’s at rest?”

  I frowned at him. “I don’t think it’s a ghost, and I sure as hell do not want to communicate with it. Why is this so important to you? It’s not like Idlewood is the only haunted house in Mobile. Why the fixation? And I want you to tell me the truth. No more BS, Angus.”

  He unbuttoned his dress shirt to reveal a blue t-shirt underneath. Angus had nice arms; he looked like he worked out, but I knew he didn’t. He was just naturally fit looking. He pulled off the shirt, and I tried not to stare. He tossed off the last vestiges of tonight’s outfit and laid it on the cushion next to him. If he thought I was feeling sexy now, he was sadly mistaken. “What makes you think I’m not telling you the truth?” Those blue eyes said trust me, but I didn’t. He was holding back, I was sure of it now.

  “I may not be a human lie detector like Detra Ann Devecheaux, but I can smell bull crap a mile away. My father was the biggest BS’er who ever lived; you are small potatoes compared to him. Now give it up or get out. I’m done being used, Angus.” Gee, where did that come from? Apparently I was plenty ticked off at him. Well, I had a right to be. At least Chip had the courtesy to show up with a bottle of wine now and then. And Gran liked him even though she called him “Big Ears” when his back was turned. Angus and I’d been “dating” or whatever you call it for six months now, and we’d barely kissed. So far, I wasn’t getting any of the things a young woman was supposed to be getting from her boyfriend, physically or emotionally, and I was pretty pissed off about it.

  “When have I lied to you?” His innocent-looking expression did not move me. I frowned at him, and he sighed. “You’re right, I didn’t tell you everything, but I didn’t want you to think I was crazy.” I leaned back and crossed my arms across my chest as if to say, Okay, spill it.

  “I’ve had some experiences of my own at Idlewood. That thing, the Shadow Man, he touched me, and I haven’t been able to forget it. It was a long time ago, but I’ll never be the same until I understand why it happened and why he won’t leave me alone. I have to have answers. You don’t know what it’s like. The anxiety, the overwhelming fear. Just when I think I’ve escaped him, he finds me.”