The Chronicles of Marr-nia (Short Stories Starring Barbara Marr) (11 page)

“Interesting article, is it not?”
 
Rosabelle
asked.

He looked at the paper with an odd expression, as if it had materialized out of nowhere.
 
“Ah.
 
Well . . .” He cleared his throat.
 
“I have not read this paper yet.”
 
He fidgeted in a nervous manner, shoving the paper under his arm.

“You should!”
 
Flora exclaimed, her eyes brightening.
 
“Rosa and I read it earlier today – a fascinating story about a lady spy!
 
What was her name,
Rosa
?”

“Abigail.
 
Abigail Dawes,”
Rosabelle
answered, studying the distracted Mr. Witherspoon intently.

“That is the name!”
 
Flora said.
 
“A lady spy for the South.
 
Evidently she is a master of disguise.
 
It is very intriguing.
 
She escaped from jail some three weeks ago now.
 
Gives me goose pimples all over my arms.”

Mr. Witherspoon pulled a watch from his breast pocket to check the time.
 
“That . . . is . . . yes.
 
Interesting.
 
Well, excuse me for my abruptness, but . . .”

“No.”
 
Rosabelle
put her hand up as if to stop his words mid-air.
 
“Excuse us, sir.
 
Come, Flora, we will be late for our engagement with the Waters family.”

Rosabelle
rushed away, her long hooped skirt pushing the snow along like a plow, while Flora, trailing desperately behind her, looked back at Eli Witherspoon, giving him an apologetic smile.

Flora’s interest in Mr. Witherspoon was not lost on
Rosabelle
, but she did not have time to be concerned with such trivial matters.
 
Not since her recollection.

“
Rosa
,” Flora wheezed, finally reaching her sister.
 
“You were so rude to Mr. Witherspoon.”

“Me, rude?
 
Did you see how strangely he was behaving?”

“Maybe you intimidated him.
 
You have that effect on people.
 
Oh!
 
I very much wanted to speak with him longer.”

“Sister,”
Rosabelle
said, stopping abruptly and pointing down the road from where they had come.
 
“Look.
 
Your Mr. Witherspoon has disappeared into thin air.”
 
Indeed there was no sign of the man.

Rosabelle
continued on.
 
“And did you hear him say he had not yet read the newspaper?”

“Well—”

“Yet it was crinkled and worn and turned to the Abigail Dawes article several pages in.”

“But—”

“Flora, something is afoot with that man, and before the day is done, he will either kill or be killed.
 
If you have an interest in this Mr. Eli Witherspoon, come help devise a way to determine which it will be.
 
Hopefully we can stop this crime before it occurs.”

Full of vigor and intention,
Rosabelle
turned on her heel and quickly crossed
King Street
just as a horse and buggy passed.
 
Flora jogged to catch up.

“These dreams of yours!”
 
Flora panted as she trotted closely behind her sister, her blonde locks bouncing.
 
“Why must you have them?
 
Mr. Witherspoon seems to be gentle and kind.
 
Surely you are wrong.”

“Flora,”
Rosabelle
corrected, blue eyes flashing.
 
“I have told you before – these are not dreams.
 
They are recollections.
 
Memories of my other lives.”

“How could you possibly know this?”

“How do I know the air is free to breathe?
 
How do I know to smile when I see snow fall from the sky or to cry when a baby dies?
 
I just know.
 
I know.”

“Bah!
 
Other lives.
 
You speak such blasphemy!
 
We live only one life on this Earth, then, God willing,
an
eternity with Him.
 
How can you think otherwise?”
 
Flora pressed her hand to her bodice.
 
“Dear, my stomach turns.
 
I am feeling ill.”

“Remember before the war, when Father entertained those importers from
Japan
?
 
They called themselves Buddhists – they believe we maintain a cycle on Earth of birth, life, death, and then re-birth.
 
It is not an uncommon belief, this idea that we are reborn to new bodies after we die.
 
Much of the world believes the same.”

“Pagans!”
 
Flora was fanning herself.

“Flora, you don’t even know what a pagan is,”
Rosabelle
responded, rolling her eyes.
 
She was easily annoyed by her sister’s fears.
 
Flora did not fare well with anything outside of the ordinary nor expected.

“Well, I know the people of this town would consider you a witch and have you burned at the stake,” Flora huffed, obviously proud of her foreboding comment.

“I should hope the day of witch burning is past us, but you speak correctly regarding local sentiment.
 
If word of this got out, I could be shunned or, even worse, put in an asylum for the ill of mind.”

Flora shook her head.
 
“It scares me so,
Rosa
.”

“Listen to me – we keep this secret between us, and no one will suffer.
 
Now tell me,” she said, changing the subject, “when did you meet Mr. Witherspoon?”

“Last Sunday at church.
 
You would know that if you had been there.”

“I was there.”

“Inside God’s house, not outside, contemplating your many wild and sinful lives.”

Exasperated,
Rosabelle
heaved a healthy sigh.
 
Flora could be so trying.
 
“Let us stay with the topic at hand, shall we?
 
Who introduced you?”

“Amelia Patton,” her sister replied.
 
“Eli Witherspoon is her
cousin,
come to
Alexandria
to work at her father’s shipping company.
 
He studied at the
University
of
Virginia
,” Flora stated with a hint of awe in her voice.

Rosabelle
stopped walking for a moment.
 
“Amelia Patton?
 
Is he living in the Patton home?”

“I think so.
 
Why?”

Ignoring Flora’s question,
Rosabelle
resumed her determined trek.
 
“About my recollection – it began when Mr. Witherspoon touched my hand.
 
I saw two men.
 
Both wore tattered garb made of wool.
 
Their hair was long and unkempt, with some strands in braids; their faces bearded.
 
One man was fair-haired and pale while the other had dark hair and eyes black like onyx.
 
This darker man was tending a field of some sort, but it was on a hill.
 
The fair-haired man rode up on a horse and dismounted.
 
They talked and shook hands.
 
When the dark man turned back to continue his work, the fair man drew a large knife and stabbed him in the back.”
 
Rosabelle
shivered with the memory.

“
Rosa
, I don’t understand how you connect your dream – your recollection – with Mr. Witherspoon.
 
Are you saying the fair man is Eli Witherspoon?”

Rosabelle
shook her head.
 
“I am not sure.
 
What I do know is this: every time I have a recollection, the person who touched me is involved in an incident almost identical to the recollection.”

The strange episodes began nearly a year earlier, just after their mother passed on.
 
Since their father had died before her while fighting for the South, they had become orphans of sorts, even though
Rosabelle
was twenty and Flora, eighteen.
 
Without husbands to care for them, they were forced to move from
Norfolk
to
Alexandria
to live with their Aunt Martha and Uncle Ephraim.
 
Even though Martha and Ephraim Raines had been warm and inviting in every way possible, losing both of their parents and leaving the only home they had ever known proved tragically painful for both girls.
 
It was during that emotional time that
Rosabelle
experienced her first recollection.

They always occurred in the same way.
 
A person would touch her, by way of introduction, possibly, or just in passing.
 
At that moment,
Rosabelle
would find herself in another world, watching a scene unfold before her.
 
When Mrs. Kincaid put her hands on
Rosabelle’s
shoulder during a quilting party, for example, she had seen a woman drown in the middle of the sea while a ship went down in flames nearby.
 
Later that day, Mrs. Kincaid drowned in the
Potomac
when she slipped off a pier and was swept away by the heavy current.

Each time
Rosabelle
had a recollection, she would relay the story to Flora with amazing detail.
 
Within a day’s time, a similar event would always occur, and always involving the person who had touched
Rosabelle
, initiating the memory.

The latest recollection involved four-year-old Edwin Hutchins.
 
Rosabelle
had agreed to care for him while his mother walked to market for some fish.
 
Full of a little boy’s energy, his blond curls bounced when he bounced.
 
He took
Rosabelle’s
hand with his own chubby little fingers and smiled up at her.
 
Immediately
Rosabelle
was beneath a tree dressed in the most exquisite finery, mounted on a spectacular steed.
 
An armored man rode past her, but she paid little attention to him.
 
Instead she was calling a name.
 
William.
 
She was calling and calling, and she felt fear.
 
Then a young boy’s voice rang out.
 
It came from above her.
 
She looked into the tree.
 
In its highest branches was a beautiful boy with red hair and blue eyes who smiled down at her.
 
He moved as if to make his way down the branches, but his foot slipped.
 
Before she could hear the scream from her own mouth, he was on the ground, mangled.
 
Dead.

Still unaccustomed to her recollections, and not convinced that the related incidents weren’t just coincidental,
Rosabelle
neglected any action.
 
She told Flora, but she did not say a word of her vision to poor Edwin’s mother, who found her son the next day in a mangled heap on the ground beneath their tall oak tree.

Gift or curse,
Rosabelle
no longer cared.
 
She had vowed that day never to dismiss a recollection again.
 
She would stop this eventual murder.
 
The problem was
,
she had no idea if the handsome Eli Witherspoon would be the murderer or his victim.

*****

Rosabelle
turned the corner to a quieter street lined with tall, handsome brick homes.

“
Rosa
, you’ve turned on the wrong street.”
 
Flora pointed in the opposite direction.
 
“The Waters family lives that way.”

“They will have to wait.
 
What we need is more information about Mr. Witherspoon.”

“Where would we possibly find any such information?” Flora asked, losing her breath in a desperate attempt to keep pace with
Rosabelle
.

“Where else, but in a room full of women?”
 
Rosabelle
smiled while stopping in front of the finest of the brick townhouses, at
220 Prince Street
.

Rosabelle
climbed the five brick steps to the artfully carved walnut door, seized the brass, pineapple door knocker, and rapped smartly three times.
 
By the time the door opened, Flora had made her way next to
Rosabelle
and the two of them were greeted by a small Negro woman who would not look directly at either of them.

“Good day, Miss.”
 
Rosabelle
offered the young woman a friendly smile.
 
“We are here for a meeting of the Alexandria Women’s League.
 
Please tell your mistress that
Rosabelle
and Flora Raines have arrived.”