Midnight Whispers (Cutler 4)

"Well don't be bad and you'll never meet her," Charlotte said. "If you're bad, you'll go to hell and Emily is the one who greets people at the door. That's what Luther says."

I took another look at the doll in the crib and thought what a strange and evidently horrifying history was locked and hidden in the walls of this old plantation house. Perhaps it was better not to dig so deeply or ask so many questions, I thought and then followed Aunt Charlotte out.

As we went down the stairs, I turned and thought I saw a shadow move across a wall, but I didn't say anything to Charlotte. I was sure if I did, she'd only tell me it was the ghost of her evil sister Emily.

When the grandfather clock bonged twelve, Charlotte put down her needlework and announced it was time to make lunch for the men. I helped her prepare the sandwiches and shortly afterward, Luther and Gavin came in. One look at Gavin told me he had really been doing hard work. His clothing was full of pieces of hay; his hands were streaked with dirt and grease, as were his neck and face, his hair was disheveled, and he looked red with fatigue.

"I'd better wash up first," he told me and then added in a whisper, "He wasn't kidding about the hard work. I'm earning our keep."

"Luther," Charlotte said after we had all sat down to eat our lunch, "can Gavin take time off now to go up into the attic and find things for him and Christie and Jefferson to wear?"

Luther looked up from his plate.

"You be careful up there," he told Gavin. "Some of those floorboards might not be worthy anymore, hear?"

"Yes sir," Gavin said. I could see that anything looked better to him than going out to work with Luther. The idea of exploring an old attic and sifting through ancient things excited Jefferson too, and he was willing to put aside his paint and brushes to go up with us.

Charlotte led the way. She talked an incessant blue streak as she shuffled along with her hands folded over her stomach and her head down like a geisha girl. She described how she would play up in the attic when she was a little girl.

"All by myself and never afraid," she added and paused at the end of the corridor at a narrow door. It opened to a dark stairway lit only by a low-wattage bare bulb dangling from a thick wire. The stairs creaked ominously as we followed Charlotte up.

"No one cared how long I stayed up here," she told us. "Not even Emily," she said and followed that with a little laugh before she added, "because I was out of everyone's hair." She stopped at the top of the stairway and looked back at us. "That's what Momma used to tell me. Charlotte, she would say, stay out or Everyone's hair. What a silly thing to say. I never got into anyone's hair. How could I?"

Gavin smiled at me and we waited as Charlotte contemplated the attic.

"There are no lights up here," she said. "Just the light that comes through the windows and the light from lamps you bring. I keep one over here," she said and lit a kerosene lamp that had been left at the top of the stairway. We followed her quickly.

It was apparent that no one had been in the attic for ages. Thick cobwebs crossed the top of the stairway and dangled from every nook and cranny. The dust was so heavy that we could see our footprints on the steps and floor. Gavin, Jefferson and I paused at the top and gazed ahead at the long, wide attic that ran nearly the full length of the great plantation house. The four sets of dormer windows across the front provided some additional illumination and in the rays of sunlight that filtered through, we could see the thick particles of dust stirred by the breezes that seeped through cracks in the walls and casements. I felt as if we had entered a tomb because the air was so stale and heavy, and everything looked so untouched and buried for years and years.

"Careful," Gavin said as we all stepped forward. The floorboards creaked ominously.

"Look!" Jefferson cried and pointed to the right where a family of squirrels had made themselves a comfortable home. They peered at us, twitched their noses arrogantly, and then scurried into corners and behind trunks and furniture. There were old sofas and chairs, tables and armoires, as well as dressers and headboards from beds. There were more old portraits, too. One in particular caught my eye because it was a picture of a young girl not much older than I was, her face caught in a soft, almost angelic smile. In none of the other portraits did the subjects even crack their lips. Their expressions were usually severe and serious.

"Do you know who this girl was, Aunt Charlotte?" I asked, holding up the silver-framed portrait.

"She was my mother's youngest sister," Charlotte explained. "Emily said she died giving birth when she was only nineteen because her heart was too soft," Charlotte recited.

"How sad. She looks so happy and so beautiful here." Every family has its own hexes, I thought. Some make their own happen, but some just wander into curses like wandering into a storm. The girl in the picture looked like she never even had a nightmare, much less imagined herself dying so tragically. Was it better to live with fear or pretend the world was full of rainbows, like Charlotte was doing? I wondered as I put the portrait back on the dusty shelf.

"I can't believe all this stuff," Gavin said, looking from one side to the other. "There must be years and years and years of things up here."

"My daddy and his daddy and daddy's daddy saved everything," Charlotte revealed. "Whenever something was replaced, it was brought up here and stored just in case. Emily used to call this the household graveyard. Sometimes, she would try to frighten me and look up at the ceiling downstairs and whisper, 'The dead are above us. Be goo

d or they'll come down during the night and peer in at you through windows.' "

"Peer through windows?" I repeated. Gavin raised his eyes, expecting I would talk about what I had thought I saw and felt last night.

"Yes," Charlotte said. "Emily hated coming up here. That's why I played up here all the time. Emily would leave me alone," she said and laughed. "And I didn't have to do all the chores she wanted me to do."

Charlotte may be a child at heart, I thought, but in some ways, she was still very clever.

"Come on," she urged and led us toward the trunks to the right. "The farther in we go, the older everything is," she said.

We walked past rows and rows of cartons, some filled with old papers and old books, some filled with old dishes, cups and antique kitchen implements. We found cartons of old shoes and boots, and cartons just filled with springs and screws and rusted tools. Gavin found a box of old ledgers and took one out to look at it.

"This is amazing," he said. "It's a listing of slaves and how much was paid for each. Look."

I gazed at the open page and read, "Darcy, age 14, weight eight stone and four, twelve dollars."