“Looking for what?” The warped planks of the wooden floor creaked loudly as she crossed the room to peer over his shoulder. “And this better be good. I thought a monster-size rat was roaming around up here, right above my bedroom. And do you know it’s three in the morning? I have a herd of ninth-graders that would love to take advantage of a tired Ms. Vicknair tomorrow morning, and I don’t like giving them the one-up on anything.”
Opening the second drawer, Dax found more letters and cards. The third drawer yielded the same thing, as did the fourth and fifth. All were from John-Paul Vicknair to Clara, or vice versa, and all of them were apparently written during the mid-to-late 1800s, including those Civil War years that he and Nanette had been searching.
“I got a note from Grandma Adeline tonight,” he said, still scanning the cards and letters as best he could in the limited light.
“A note? You mean another assignment?”
“No, a note, telling me that the information that you need is in the attic.”
“The information I need?” she questioned.
“These cards and letters,” Dax said, waving at the mound of them crammed in the drawers. “Some of them are from the Civil War. I know that may not prove anything, but you never know.” He frowned. Maybe he’d been drawn to the chifforobe because it held what Nanette needed. Maybe what he was supposed to find was somewhere different entirely.
He turned and scanned the room again, while Nanette eagerly started thumbing through the letters.
“You think what we need for the National Register is in here? Proof that the house was inhabited during the Civil War? Seriously?” she asked, suddenly much more alert.
“I think that’s what she was talking about, as far as you’re concerned.”
“What do you mean, as far as I’m concerned?” Nan asked, holding up a letter to the light.
“She said that the information I want is up here too.”
“You mean about Celeste?” Nanette asked, surveying the letter in her hand.
Dax nodded, but she was too preoccupied with trying to read the letter to notice.
“I can’t see anything up here,” she complained.
“Yeah, I know.” He spotted a couple of empty boxes and pointed to them. “Grab those, and we’ll gather the letters and take them downstairs where the light is better.”
He began scooping up the letters from the top drawer, waited for her to open the first box, then gingerly placed them inside. The paper was old, and in some cases already torn from age, or from their Vicknair ancestors rereading each other’s correspondence. He moved to the other drawers and did the same, until both boxes were full. Then he rubbed his fingertips along the bottom of each drawer to verify he hadn’t missed any letters. No way did he want to miss one that might help Celeste get back.
Looking at the boxes, both filled to the brim, he realized that while he may have found what they were looking for, identifying it was going to take time. And time was something he didn’t have to spare.
“Want to take them to the kitchen?” Nan asked. “So we can spread them out on the table?”
“Sure. You’re actually going to stay up with me?” he asked, knowing that she never voluntarily gave up sleep before a workday. She’d been telling the truth earlier; ninth-graders would make mincemeat of a tired teacher.
“I may read a few of them with you. Gotta admit, I’m curious to know what’s in these letters.” She grabbed one of the boxes as Dax lifted the other. “So you think there’s something in here that will help you figure out how Celeste can stay longer?”
“I know that there’s something in this attic that will help, and I’m thinking it may also be in these letters.”
“Did you learn anything from Ryan?”
“Yeah,” he said, motioning for her to start on ahead of him. “I learned that Celeste’s situation is nothing at all like his was. He controlled when he came, where he went, how long he stayed, everything. She has no control, none at all. And there are other things that are different about her too, not just different from Ryan’s situation, but different from every ghost I’ve seen.”
He followed her out of the attic and used their time navigating the ladder and then the two flights of stairs leading to the kitchen to once more run over all of the differences he’d noticed-Celeste’s exhaustion, her lack of control over when she came and went, the fact that she didn’t glow as brightly as other spirits and her eyes weren’t black.
Dax decided not to enlighten Nan that Celeste also had the ability to touch him, and to do way more than that. She’d brought him to orgasm with her mouth, in her mouth. He hardened again, merely at the memory.
He placed his box on the table and immediately sat down behind it, so there was no way Nan could notice the bulge pressing against his jeans. She had no need to know those details, and Dax certainly had no desire to share them with his cousin.
He cleared his throat. “Ryan suspects that she glows brighter when she gets closer to the other side.”
She placed her box across from his. “But every time our ghosts visit, they’re already glowing, and the brightness doesn’t increase as they get closer to crossing, or it hasn’t with any of mine. What about yours?”
“No, never.”
“And their eyes are always jet black, right from the moment I get them,” she said.
“Mine too. That’s what I don’t understand about Celeste. Something’s different, and unless I figure it out in time, I’m afraid she’ll cross completely, and I won’t be able to stop it.”
“And you think these letters hold the answer for what’s going on with her?” she asked, lifting a handful from her box.
“Hell, I hope so.” He gave her a tired smile. “So, you up to reading, oh, a couple of hundred letters?”
She sighed, then put the letters back on top of the stack. “You know, I thought that I’d help you get started on them,” she said, peeking at the clock on the microwave. “But I’ve got to get up in two hours. As much as I want to find proof that people were in this house back then, I do have a class to teach in the morning. And you have to work too, don’t you?”
He did. In fact, tomorrow he had to cover his biggest route, visiting doctors in the majority of southeastern Louisiana. Typically, he loved his job. He made decent money, though currently most of it went toward repairs on the plantation, and he got a company-paid car-a BMW, no less-but it did involve a lot of driving and long hours, and generally required he get a full night’s sleep before a day of work. “Yeah, I do. But I think I’ll go ahead and start on some of these first, then I’ll sleep. Unlike your teaching job, I don’t really have a time I have to get started.”
However, the later he started, the later he’d have to work, and in the back of his mind, he was hoping to see Celeste tomorrow night. Then again, his grandmother’s note had said she’d need more than a day of rest before she could return again. Maybe he should work an extra-long day, in case she showed up later in the week, and he decided to take a day off.
Nanette yawned. “Tell you what. You look some of them over tonight and then mark the spot you get to. I’ll pick up tomorrow afternoon. With the parent-teacher conferences out of the way, I should be home right after school’s out, so that should give me plenty of time to see what we’ve got.”
“Deal. And I can’t help but think that what we need is in here,” he said, indicating the boxes filled with letters.
“I hope so, because it’d be really good to put Charles Roussel in his place. I’ve been dreaming of the day when I can tell him that he has no control over whether the Vicknair plantation stays or goes.” She smiled, apparently envisioning the scene with the cocky parish president. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe Grandma Adeline has given us a way to save the house.”