Twilight's Child (Cutler 3)

Jimmy couldn't help but laugh.

"May we come in?" I asked her.

"Oh, yes. We can have mint tea."

"That will be fine," I said, stepping into what had been a house of horrors.

I couldn't help but shudder. The memories came rushing back the moment I entered that dark, dismal entryway and saw the oak chest, the hardwood benches too uncomfortable-looking to sit upon and the upholstered chairs that were great dust collectors. On the walls were portraits of ancestors—women with pinched faces dressed in dark clothes, their hair pinned back severely, and men, unsmiling and stern. There was no doubt Emily had been a descendant of these horrid people, I thought.

"Emily's still upstairs," Charlotte revealed. "She's still in her bed."

"Luther didn't call an undertaker?" I looked at Jimmy. He shrugged.

"I'll go upstairs and take a look," he said. We had decided on the way that I would spend most of my time going through papers and documents in what had been Emily's office.

"I'll go, too," Charlotte cried. "And then we'll have tea."

"Lead the way, please," Jimmy said. Charlotte shuffled toward the stairway. She still walked like a geisha girl, with her hands clasped to her body, her head down. Jimmy followed, and I went to the office.

The moment I entered, the grandfather clock in the corner bonged as if warning me to stay out. I lit the kerosene lamp on the desk quickly, and the flame threw a sheet of light up and over the giant picture of Mr. Booth. He looked as if he were frowning down at me. I found another kerosene lamp on a table and lit that one as well. In fact, I tried to light every kerosene lamp in sight, recalling how Emily had forced us to live in such darkness, hoarding the fuel and distributing it with a miserly hand.

I went behind the desk and began to sift through papers, most of which were common household bills.

"If you're lookin' for a will, you won't find one," Luther said, suddenly appearing in the doorway. The shadows on his face made him look leaner and older. As he approached I saw that he was otherwise unchanged. It was as if everything and everyone about this place were frozen in time, trapped forever and ever in one of my nightmares. The strands of his dirty brown hair were long and disheveled. As always, he needed a shave badly, his rough, gray-brown stubble growing in ugly patches over his otherwise pale white face.

He wiped his muddy hands on his overalls.

"She told me once that she had no will. She didn't care what happened after she passed," he explained.

"I see," I said, sitting back. "Then it will have to go to probate. Didn't you call an undertaker to provide a coffin, Luther?" I asked.

"Got one made already," he said. Then, with his eyes small, he added, "I had it made and waiting in the barn a long time."

"Sit down, Luther," I said, nodding toward the leather chair by the desk. He looked at it as if it were some sort of trap. "Please, I want to talk to you. Neither of us has anything to fear from the other, especially now that Miss Emily's gone."

That pleased him, and he sat.

"If you hated her so much, why did you stay on and take her mean way??" I asked.

"I told you once," he said. "This place was all I knew, all I had. She thought she owned it, but she didn't. She didn't know nothin' about it. You got to work a place to own it."

"She made you her slave because you made Charlotte pregnant a long time ago," I charged. "Isn't that so? She held it over your head." I remembered Charlotte telling me herself how Luther had done the "wiggles" on her, and how after that she had become pregnant.

"I got nothin' to be ashamed of," he said by way of an answer. He leaned forward. "Emily, she made out like she was God Almighty's personal messenger on earth. All the Booths except Mrs. Booth thought they were better than anyone else. Turned my pappy into a common slave and worked my momma into a hole, but I knew their sins," he added, smiling. "Even when I was just a little boy I knew, and besides, my momma, she told me everything that went on."

"What went on?" I asked. I was surprised he was so talkative now, but I assumed it was because the shadow of Emily Booth had been lifted from him.

"The old man, he was a good farmer, but he liked the ladies and imbibed often," he said.

"Imbibed?"

"Drank his good brandy like other people drank water," he explained. "Mrs. Booth, she was a nice lady; I always liked her. She was always kind to me, give me things whenever none of the others was lookin'. She was always sickly and weak. My momma used to say Mr. Booth drained Mrs. Booth like a rain barrel. Sucked her dry," he added.

"She got sick and died soon after she gave birth to Charlotte, right?" I asked, recalling the little about her I was able to learn when I was here.

He sat back, a strange self-satisfied smile on his face.

"She ain't never gave birth to Charlotte," he said. "Oh, she pretended she did, but my daddy and my momma, they knew the truth. Momma, she had to take care of her, you know, and," he added, leaning toward the desk, "see after Lillian."