The Splendour Falls (20 page)

While I tried to compare apples and oranges, and
Gigi crunched her kibble, Professor Griffith stepped through the door Addie had left open, carrying his mug. In his button-down shirt and cardigan he made a comfortably frumpy picture, especially as he sipped his tea, looking after Shawn's departing red pickup. ‘That young man is full of charm.'

‘Yeah.' Now that he was gone, I was a little embarrassed at how completely I'd been bowled over by tidal wave Shawn. ‘Clearly there's no love lost between him and Rhys, though.'

The professor smiled ruefully. ‘As an anthropologist, I could comment on the sociobiology behind young males and perceived territory.'

I frowned at his word choice. ‘I hope you don't mean me.'

‘Not entirely,' he said, missing the point of my protest. ‘They've been at odds since they laid eyes on each other. Rhys only said that Shawn reminded him of someone.'

Someone he didn't like, obviously. I glanced cautiously towards the kitchen, where I could see Paula and Clara chatting. I wanted to ask Professor Griffith about what he'd said about lingering spirits, but I worried it would give something away. Though, even if I'd never seen anything strange, I would be naturally curious. I figured as long as I kept my interest casual, I wouldn't raise the crazy flag.

‘So, Professor Griffith,' I began, oh so idly, ‘about what you said in there, about different cultures having ghost stories …'

‘Ah yes.' He perched on the arm of the wicker
settee, looking pleased at the opportunity to continue his lecture, and apparently finding nothing odd in my bringing it up again. ‘The idea of some tangible psychic impression on a physical location is quite common.'

I sat on the cushioned chair, taking the weight off my leg. ‘What do you mean, “psychic impression”?'

He finished his sip of tea and answered in the same academic tone. ‘Some people think of ghosts in the traditional restless-spirit way. Souls who can't move on because of unfinished business.'

‘Like Hamlet's ghost,' I said. A fitting reference, since some people think Hamlet was just imagining his father's spirit as a precursor to going bananas.

But Professor Griffith nodded. ‘Yes. But another theory to explain people's experiences is that people or events might leave a stamp on a place. Perhaps it's a big thing that happened once – like the scene of a past murder that always feels cold. Or something routine that happened for years – like reports of sentries who still walk castle battlements.'

‘So, hypothetically speaking' – I kept my tone light– ‘have you ever thought you'd seen a ghost?'

He shrugged affably. ‘Hasn't everyone had some inexplicable experience? A feeling of being watched; a glimpse of something in the corner of one's eye, gone as soon as you turn?'

My heart gave a jolt of recognition, which I tried to keep out of my face. ‘But no one has ever proved anything.'

‘That depends on your level of proof,' said the
professor. ‘Ghost hunters point to all kinds of things as evidence. Blurry streaks on photos, static on recordings, changes in temperature or electrical fields—'

‘Changes in temperature?' The question shot out, spurred by my memory of the chill out on the lawn, and the lingering cold at the top of the stairs.

But the professor merely nodded, still taking my interest as academic. ‘Temperature changes are a measurable event that paranormal investigators look for. But most reported experiences are subjective. How do you record a
feeling
?'

I chewed my lip, choosing my words carefully. ‘Seriously, Professor. Do
you
believe any of this stuff ? Isn't it kind of crazy?'

He chuckled, so I must have hit the right note. ‘I do not discount people's experiences. Though I would look for a natural explanation before a paranormal one.' Smiling, he gave a ‘what the hell' shrug. ‘However, I allow that just because something hasn't been proven to my satisfaction doesn't mean that it
couldn't
exist.'

In other words, yes and no. The professor was well educated, and seemed reasonable and functional. ‘Open-minded but critical' sounded like a good approach. I didn't want to believe in ghosts, but I didn't want to believe I was nuts, either.

Gigi was done eating, and came trotting out of her open crate, expecting praise for finishing her breakfast. It was a timely interruption. Bending to give the dog due worship hid my face while I processed what had been said.

The professor finished his tea and stood. ‘I'd best
get on with my day. If I'm not done with my next chapter when Rhys gets back, he'll know it was because I was lecturing again.'

I glanced up, with a tentative smile. ‘I wouldn't want you to get into trouble. But I appreciate you chatting with me.'

‘Any time. Those ghost-hunter shows are a guilty pleasure of mine – as a cultural anthropologist, I'm interested in the folklore aspect.' He grimaced sheepishly. ‘And as you've probably noticed, I do love to share my obsessions.'

I picked up Gigi, then realized I had an opening to pry about more than supernatural theories. It didn't seem quite fair – not least because Professor Griffith was such a nice guy – but I felt at such a disadvantage, I could reconcile a little cheating.

‘You're pretty lucky, though,' I said, striking as casual a tone as I could, ‘that Rhys took a break from school to help with your research.'

The professor nodded, but his answer was coloured with regret. ‘I
am
lucky, though I wish he hadn't put his own thesis on hold to do it. Still, I can understand his wanting to take a break after what happened.'

My conscience stabbed at me, because that was too easy. But not so much that I didn't ask the obvious question. ‘What happened?'

He hesitated, then gave an almost invisible shrug. ‘He doesn't like to talk about it, but I don't know why – there's nothing shameful in it. He was on an externship between terms, in the mountains, when an abandoned slate mine collapsed.'

‘Oh my God.' I had a vivid image of the groan of
earth, and suffocating darkness. The stuff of real nightmares. Rhys had said something last night, about having to redirect your whole way of thinking. Had the poignancy in his voice been related to this? ‘Was anyone hurt?'

‘It wasn't as bad as it could have been, considering. But some of Rhys's fellow interns were injured. His friend was in a coma for some time. He's having to learn to walk again.'

The guilt knife twisted, but not because of my prying. No wonder Rhys had no patience with me. I couldn't dance professionally, but I could walk. The limp wasn't even bad unless I was tired. It was a wonder he spoke to me at all.

Professor Griffith sighed, and reached out to pet Gigi's soft ears. ‘Rhys feels somehow responsible. I haven't figured out why. But he wouldn't appreciate my talking about it.'

‘I'll keep it to myself,' I vowed, and meant it.

As he reentered the kitchen, I went to the screen door, planning to go out and round to the main stairs, to avoid incurring Paula's puppy-in-the-kitchen wrath. I did linger a moment, watching as the professor greeted the women at the breakfast table, just to make sure he didn't report back to them that I'd been asking suspicious questions about ghosts.

Whatever he said, it didn't make them turn my way, and I was glad my instincts had been right. I liked Rhys's dad, in a refreshingly uncomplicated way.

Which didn't mean I could let down my guard.

P
aula looked up in surprise as I came into the kitchen with my sneakers on, ready for a trek. ‘Going somewhere?'

‘I thought I'd go to Old Cahawba.' I'd meant to spend time with Dad's book, but my thoughts were too muddled for me to enjoy it. I felt a need to move, to channel my spinning brain into physical action.

She stared at me with a growing frown of concern. ‘Are you sure, honey? That's a mighty long walk, and you're not exactly able-bodied.'

If I hadn't been sure before, I was after that. ‘I'll be fine,' I said, hardly gritting my teeth at all.

Clara said more kindly, ‘Of course you will. You have your cell phone so you can call if you need us?'

I hadn't thought about the phone since talking to John the night I'd arrived, but I slid my hand into my jeans pocket and found I'd grabbed it automatically. ‘I'm good.'

After another sigh from Paula and an admonition to be back for lunch, I snapped on Gigi's leash and we set out down the great lawn towards the woods. The plume of her tail rode at a jaunty angle, and she showed no qualms at diving into nature.

At the forest's edge I paused, because the route would take us in the direction of the wailing sound I'd heard three times now. Open-minded or not, I wasn't keen to invite inexplicable experiences. But Gigi didn't seem interested in anything but the trail.

Trekking through the dappled shade wasn't much like striding down the streets of Manhattan. The looming pines and thick oaks made a sort of rustic palace, with a carpet of pine needles and tapestries of Spanish moss. To my right was the faint music of the river. Paula had warned me it ran too fast for safe swimming, but to the ear it was lazy and comforting.

We came to a fence, but there was a stile that made it easy to go over – if you weren't encumbered by a wiggling dog and a fear of falling. I managed not to drop either of us and, with an unfamiliar feeling of pleasure, I continued down the path, idly imagining who had taken it before me. The trees showed no hint of an
old road. This would be a shortcut for servants going into town, or for the boys of the house to run to meet their playmates. The girls would be forced to go by carriage, to preserve their dresses and dignity.

I wondered if the girl who'd lived in my room, back when the floral wallpaper and dainty furniture were new, had found that as annoying as I would have. Maybe it was sleeping on the antique mattress or using her washbasin and cupboard. Maybe it was Paula's strictures, like those of an overzealous governess. In any case, like yesterday in the garden, I found myself wondering how I would feel in her shoes.

The path finally met a dirt road. I was either on park property or trespassing on someone's land. I hadn't bothered consulting a map. I knew from the Davis book that the old capital was at the junction of the rivers I'd seen from the balcony, and had headed in that direction.

Gigi and I continued along the road – both of us slowing down a bit – until we reached the decaying remains of a two-storey, columned box of a mansion that looked a little like it could be Bluestone Hill's aged and shrunken poor relation. There was a sign on the splitrail fence in front of the house that indicated I had indeed reached Old Cahawba Archaeological Park.

According to the plaque, this had been the house of a prominent family during the town's heyday. After the population largely decamped for Selma during the Reconstruction, the house was bought by one of the former slaves, who'd lived there until his death in the early nineteen hundreds.

It seemed like it would be weird to go back to a place where you were owned. But maybe it was awesome. I hoped the man filled the house with children and went to bed every night with a smile of smug contentment.

My musings seemed to blur my vision, and I grasped the fence, its wood smooth with age. For a moment I could see the ruin of the place, and on top of it, like a projection slide, was a freshly painted house with a manicured yard. When I blinked, it was gone, and I was again looking at a sagging roof and falling-down porch.

I rubbed my hand over my eyes. Maybe this hadn't been such a great idea. I was tired, but didn't want to acknowledge that Paula had been right. My leg was weak, and it had been a long walk. I'd been exhausted the night I arrived at Bluestone Hill, too. Maybe it was fatigue that allowed these impressions to sneak up on me, weave into my consciousness and seem too real.

Gigi pulled at her leash, eager to investigate the dilapidated place. I shuddered at the thought of rats, and walked on, tugging her along with me.

There weren't many standing houses or even ruins; here or there was the rubble of foundation, the spar of a support beam, but mostly empty flat plots of land. ‘Ghost town' seemed very appropriate. The trees looked like they grew around invisible shapes, the ground flattened under unseen weight. Here was proof that the impact of something on its environment could outlast its physical form.

But that was a house, not a person. Still, it made me consider what the professor had said, about impressions
of the past. Was it possible that servants passing from kitchen to dining room, all day every day for at least a hundred years, could wear a pattern in the atmosphere of the house like wearing a path in a carpet?

My mental rambles were taking me to a dangerous place, one where I was making impossible things sound reasonable. Fortunately, I was distracted by the fact that my physical ramble had reached an asphalt road.

A street sign – definitely not a hundred and fifty years old – indicated I was at the corner of Capital and Oak, in the Old Cahawba Historical Site.

I turned onto Capital and headed towards the gleam of sunlight on the river. The trees opened up into a broad avenue, and I imagined it – deliberately this time – as a bustling street full of horses and buggies and men in tall hats.

Envisioning the place full of people made it less lonely; Gigi and I seemed to have the park to ourselves. I hadn't felt odd in the woods or the side road. But walking the thoroughfare seemed peculiar, as if I was identifying a little too closely with my great-great-whatever, who would have shocked everyone if she'd walked the main street alone.

The street ended –
finally
– in a traffic circle, with a crumbling stone column in the centre. I picked my way across the grass surrounding the monument, and while Gigi sniffed the base, I read the inscription carved on the side: