Author: Dale Wiley
Category: Thriller
Go to read content：https://onlinereadfreenovel.com/dale-wiley/page,8,457982-southern_gothic.html
“He’s not Mr. Cheely.” She shook her head and repeated.
“She said it was the plantation owner.” He looked confused and was losing steam.
“Plantation?” Leah looked confused. I shot her a look telling her to play along.
I shook my head. “I’m sorry; I’m not Mr. Cheely.”
The man turned and looked directly at Leah, his face turning a deep shade of crimson. He turned back and looked at me, sizing up where he had gone wrong. Finally, he turned to Leah and said, “I’m very sorry, ma’am.”
There is no man more dangerous than a disgraced husband. I couldn’t imagine what it would feel like to lose Catherine, and my heart was still adjusting to the scar of losing Leah. I didn’t relax, unsure what the man’s next move would be.
He turned to me as if he could read my mind. After a moment, he nodded. He slowly backed out of the house until he was halfway down the front path and then turned and sprinted down the road as if his fury required a more fulfilling confrontation.
Tucked in his waistband was a wood-handled large caliber revolver. I fell to my knees. My world was careening.
Chapter 20
Meredith went back upstairs and found Michael had gone into her room and closed the door behind him. Part of her hoped to find him lying in her bed, but instead he stood at the big bay window, watching Nate’s car back down the driveway.
“What did he want?”
He sounded jealous.
“He works for me at the store.”
“I saw him too. Does he fancy you? Do you fancy him?” He turned to look at her, his face creased and sour.
“We are not in the 1800s. I think that’s the last time people ‘fancied’ each other.” She tried to lighten the mood. Michael had been carried away like a character from his book.
“Why did he bring flowers? You’re sure getting a lot of them lately.”
“Why are you in my room?”
“I’m sorry. I picked the wrong door.” He spat the words out.
“Seems like you do that a lot. Oops! Forgot to get an invitation. Let’s just break and enter.”
“Maybe I picked the wrong pupil.” He glared through her.
Meredith tried not to look hurt, but the comment struck her right in the gut. She had no answer.
“Look,” he said, “if I’m interrupting some budding office romance, I can leave any time.”
She fidgeted with her hair. She hoped she could walk this back. She didn’t want Michael to ruin the mood the book had created.
“I told him I had a date with someone else.”
“Well, am I in the way then?”
Meredith took a deep breath. She looked at the silly man. “Look. I don’t know what that boy did to piss you off, but if you think I’m interested in a skinny, little kid barely out of college, then you know a whole lot less about women than I’ve spent the last twenty years giving you credit for. I came up to ask you where we were going to dinner, but if you insist on behaving like every other man I’ve ever had the misfortune to meet, then I’d rather go read my book and be alone.”
She slammed the door, her hands shaking, and walked downstairs for the manuscript. Her knees only wobbled slightly, or at least, that’s what she told herself.
RED RIBBON
Chapter Fifteen
That winter, the weather felt cold and desolate and rivaled a good northern one. The north Georgia wind cut right through me. The countryside turned snowstorm gray like a winter without Christmas. The sky was the color of my mood every day Catherine didn’t return. Other times, when a storm whipped up, it reminded me of the turbulence of still being connected to Leah, a constant tension in the back of my mind that trouble could come at any moment.
Catherine, as you would expect, hadn’t been back. Perhaps we were both afraid of what her husband would do to us if he learned the truth—that he was wrong only in my name. As weeks turned to months, I dreaded his return less, and despite the feelings I still had for her, I grew used to the thought I’d never see her again.
I tried to focus on Leah. With winter on top of us, it was good her condition was improving. But without the promise of Catherine’s return, that seemed as cold and empty as the unfinished rooms in our ice water mansion.
The house was much closer to being finished. At this point, we focused on more detailed smaller projects. She took to the painful detail work involved in breathing life into a home of a certain age—restoring the woodwork, sanding the molding, varnishing the built in furniture. She got good at it, and I did my best to be gentle and encouraging.
Slowly, Catherine’s porcelain beauty began losing its power over me. I started to feel more shame about my affair and deep regret over breaking the commitment I’d made to my wife. She gave away nothing to hint that she knew, but we were still so out of sync I had trouble reading her, and besides, Leah was so untethered I often wondered what she really remembered about our halcyon past.
No new letters emerged.
I decided the best thing to do—in addition to trying to make friends and ease our entry into the community—was to learn more about the history of the place. By this point, I was doing it for me, but I hoped I would get to see it through. Both of us wanted things for the house that had meaning. We wanted everything to be from the right era, and to the extent possible, we wanted each item to have a connection to our home. Truthfully, it was a great excuse to get out of the house, go into town, and spend a few hours by myself at the library, surrounded by books and far away from Leah’s painful silences.
The history of the place extended further back than Kilpatrick and the Civil War. The Shoals had originally been purchased by a Revolutionary War hero named William Bird from Pennsylvania and Benjamin Hamp from Georgia. They bought thousands of acres, hoping to build mills on the property. They wanted to put the mills close to the site where the house was, and when they finally built the woolen mill, it was believed to be the first of its kind in the state. Colonel Bird and his family moved nearby, and their house was known as The Aviary. It was located across the river from where The Shoals would eventually stand, and their family graveyard remained. Colonel Bird was buried there in 1812.
Thomas Cheely, Leah’s distant relative, bought the place in 1812 and added a grist mill to the thriving woolen mill. He built the house using peg construction during the early 1820s. It was expensive and time-consuming, taking the five years Matt had told me about, even with slave labor.
In the war, Georgia didn’t see as many battles as border states like Kentucky, Tennessee, and Missouri initially. But later, to break the Confederacy, Sherman made his famous march through Georgia. There was no denying the people’s allegiances; after all, he brought Georgia out of a gauzy dream and reverie and into the nightmare of a war fought at the front door. It destroyed homes and broke the spirit of the people, much like those people had already done to generations of slaves.
The Shoals was directly in the path on one side of Sherman’s two-sided plan. General Kilpatrick, who was fresh off losing a part of his command after a disaster in Richmond, and his soldiers used our house as their headquarters. Kilpatrick spared the house and the women, but he ordered the mills to be burned. I tried to imagine the scene—the women and children must have been terrified the fires engulfing the mills would overtake the house as well. I could almost smell the smoke and feel their fear.
Was this land cursed? Was it going to swallow Leah and me up, too?
The history was interesting but constantly depressing. What crimes and what joys had taken place here? What else did the property hold? How did it relate to my wife’s fragile psyche?
Again, after another helpful period, Leah dove back into the murky darkness. She was back to the insults and name-calling, and sometimes, it seemed she fought people I couldn’t see. That much pain starts to be hard to understand. We cycled through more hospital visits, and Leah’s desperate pleas to avoid them only made it worse.
We still attempted to be nor
mal. She would occasionally try to be lovey-dovey against the doctor’s orders, but for me, that ship had finally sailed. It was like cuddling with a wooden box. Leah wasn’t there anymore. I struggled to find a name for this stranger I shared my house with.
We watched Raintree County, a late fifties Elizabeth Taylor movie about the Civil War. She moaned and complained and made watching as uncomfortable as everything else we did. I told her I was going to bed early. I didn’t mention anything about being very mad as I assumed it wouldn’t matter to her anyway. I poured myself some whiskey—something I noticed myself doing more frequently—and laid on my side of the bed. Within seconds, I was in a black cocoon of sleep.
Then I awoke with a start. I don’t know how long I had slept. My wife was standing over me, all shadows and breath, inches from my face, trapping me in bed. She was moving back and forth as if dancing to music only she could hear. One hand moved in toward me and then away as if casting a spell. Her eyes, those lovely jewels that had first drawn me to her like a siren’s call, were now full of hatred and madness. They stared straight through me.
In her other hand, she held a sharp long kitchen knife, the one I had touched while thinking of ending it all.
I surveyed my surroundings in an attempt to plan my next move. I pushed myself back from the brink of panic. Did she know about Catherine? She moved the knife over my chest, mimicking the movements that would drive the blade into my heart. Then she caressed it, fondled it, even ran her tongue over it. Once, she lunged at me with it, and it took every ounce of self-control I had not to jump up and grab the knife and subdue her. I had heard stories about people who under the power of their madness have a supernatural strength, and I did not want my life spilling out onto this floor, which now seemed like it was made of curses.
She moved back by two or three steps, and her silent tarantella grew grander. The dance was beautiful and strange, and she was like a voodoo queen, wild and enchanted. I realized the woman before me was a stranger, a creature distant and alone and utterly different from the person I had married. I knew sleep wouldn’t come that night. I wondered if it would ever come again.
Chapter 21
Meredith went outside and sat on the porch. The air smelled sweet with the aroma of clove cigarettes, and it reminded her of the first day she found the red ribbon. Since Michael’s arrival, her life had filled up with so much meaning and intensity.
With the rain’s steady drone, the porch proved to be the perfect place to continue the novel. She hoped heaven was like this—calm, temperate, and full of porch swings. This porch had sold the house. If it were socially acceptable, she would live on the porch and rent the house to someone else.
In the backyard, there were four trees laden with Spanish moss. She watched the water drip down the tendrils of moss, a mesmerizing sight. The trees were easily a century old, probably older.
Southerners always found comfort in their version of history—genteel kings and queens of a republic never allowed to flourish. Meredith knew this wasn’t true; there were more bloody graves than mid-summer parties under the live oaks, but those myths nevertheless enchanted her. She prayed for something to keep her tethered to the life she knew and to help her rebel against this dream spinner. But what would life be if she couldn’t follow a majestic dream? The thought of having her name on this book was almost more than she could stand, even if Michael didn’t know how to behave around a woman.
When she read, she left her earthly surroundings behind. Her breathing slowed. Her shoulders relaxed. She succumbed to a gentle hypnosis, especially when conducted by the master—and herself. Reading these pages, she fell back into her own dream.
When she looked up, she saw Michael approaching. She bit her lip to hide her smile. He looked contrite, holding his hands like he was apologizing to the sheriff in an old western.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I should have known you wouldn’t be interested in that pipsqueak.”
Meredith frowned. “That pipsqueak is my friend.” She saw the crestfallen look from Michael. Maybe he retained a bit of sensitivity after all. “But I’m not interested in him. I’m afraid I’d eat him for lunch.”
A corner of Michael’s mouth turned up. “He might like that.” He cringed. He had missed his mark.
Michael was so rusty at this whole flirting thing. Then she remembered how hard it would be to completely uproot from family and friends and become utterly alone. Plenty of women would still find him attractive, if he wanted, whether they knew of his literary past or not.
“Will you take me to dinner tonight? I’m just going to ask since you keep screwing it up.”
He laughed. “I’ll think about it.” Then strode back into the house.
RED RIBBON
Chapter Sixteen
That night, I lay awake and breathed shallowly, my mind on high alert. I marveled at what my life had become.
Maybe an hour later, Leah tired of her knife-dancing. She casually dropped the knife on the stairs and climbed into bed. Her movements were like a zombie’s, plodding and unconscious, and she didn’t acknowledge my presence at all. I dozed once and woke to her snoring soundly. I was so tired. All I wanted to do was sleep, but that seemed unwise, maybe even dangerous. I climbed out of bed quietly and retrieved the knife where she had dropped it on the stairs. It felt like ice in my hands.
I knew I needed to call a doctor immediately. I walked downstairs and picked up the phone. No dial tone. I knelt down to check and make sure it was still plugged in. The cord had been cut. I rubbed my hands against the sharp edge. I walked across the living room and checked my cell. The cord was also cut, and my phone was dead. I went back to the hall to make sure she wasn’t coming down and then surveyed the room to discover she had done this to everything: the computer, the coffee machine, the fridge. The cords were all plugged in their sockets but dangling limp. With the electronics disconnected, the house was quiet with a pall of death. Outside, the horizon was beginning to brighten. It was time for me to leave.
I went to the car and found the lights had been left on. I turned the engine, and it coughed a death rattle, letting me know the battery was dead. I smiled when I saw that. Leah had been mean before but never destructive. Now she had danced with a knife dangling over my head and cut me off from the outside world.
I went back inside and grabbed a coat and my dead phone to make the two-mile walk to Matt’s. The chill in the air invigorated me. I no longer felt so bone tired. My breath came out in white clouds. The pines in the icy pre-dawn loomed tall and foreboding. They knew the secrets of this place. I wasn’t so sure I wanted to anymore.
I stepped off the road several times to allow large logging trucks to whistle by me, each one a sure threat to suck me up and take me under. They rattled through the semi-darkness, driving as if being chased by spirits, red lights disappearing in the distance.
Besides the logging trucks, I was alone on the road. The day was gradually unfolding, but the shadows were still long, and I shivered in my light jacket. I was probably halfway there. Without the electric buzz that dulled my senses most of my waking moments, there was nothing to break the constant murmur in my head. What happened? Where had my wife gone? What was this madness that had so completely consumed her? My world had been swallowed up whole. My muscles ached, and my head was numb. I wanted to cry but didn’t know if I had the tears. I wanted to blame the place, my own base desires, my wife for flicking me to the ground like a discarded cigarette, and Catherine for forgetting me when I needed her most.
Matt met me at the door with a cup of coffee in his hand. He knew this was not good.
“What happened?”
I felt like a traitor, turning on the one person I had promised everything to, but I said it anyway. “She’s cracked. Fully cracked”
My wife, reduced to these awful words. I tried so hard not to cry. But there I was—crumpled in a ball in the driveway, crying desperate tears.
Chapter 22
Meredith made
a reservation for 9:30 p.m. and read for another forty-five minutes before getting ready. Michael showed her what he planned to wear—a well-made blue dress shirt and jeans. She grabbed them up and told him she’d put them in the wash. She knew the clothes would be ready well before she would. She retreated to her bathroom to take a long, hot bath.
Meredith liked her baths very hot—even uncomfortable at first. Lance had always complained about it and wouldn’t join her, missing another chance at intimacy that would have regularly led to other things. She chuckled as she carefully put her foot in the tub, her skin turning pink in the heat. She eased herself in and waited for the level to be high enough to turn on the jets.
Then a strange thing happened: she noticed her body—she noticed her nakedness. Those things had gone without any real attention for so long, but now she saw them differently. She thought about the way her body ached and longed to be noticed by someone who would pay attention to her and let her lose herself. She closed her eyes, letting her hands explore, and marveled at how long it had been since she had done that. She tensed with the thought of the complications Michael brought. But sometimes complications were good ...
The book was not just good; it was great. But what did Michael really have in store, and how exactly did she fit within his plan? He acted like he had enough money, but did he expect more? Did he want to stay here—with her? She wanted him to but had no idea how it would work. One thing was for certain: she wanted to end the night like she imagined Catherine would. She fantasized about what would come next when Catherine embraced the narrator and met his expectant kiss. She saw herself as Catherine, glad to be away from her brutish husband and into safe arms, healing the brokenness Leah had left him with, forgetting words and finding solace and bliss.
Slowly she nodded off. She dreamed of The Shoals and walking its grounds. She saw Catherine on the porch, waiting for her man. Catherine turned and noticed Meredith standing there. She shook her head and looked Meredith in the eyes. Just as Catherine started to speak, Meredith sensed another person there, a character she didn’t know. She shook wide awake, startled.