Devil's Pawn (Devil's Pawn Duet 1)

“Are you afraid of a few ghosts?”

She shudders and I remember what she’d said about the cellar, how it’s haunted. And I think about Zoë. Even the cemetery would be a cheerier place to haunt than that cellar.

“Why are we here?” she asks again, trepidation in her voice.

“We’re here so you can understand why you’re here. So you can see what the Bishops have done. What they, and you, are capable of.”

“I’m not—”

“It’s what you wanted to know, isn’t it? Why I took you? Why I hate you?”

She shudders at that word and I’m not sure it fits, but all it takes is a glance at one of the grave markers to shove those thoughts away.

I pull Isabelle with me as I cross the clearing toward the iron gate. She resists but I never expected her to come willingly. It’s her guilt, her subconscious guilt inherited from her ancestors.

I open the gate. It creaks just like in horror films and I’m surprised when Isabelle moves a little closer to me. I wonder if she realizes she does it.

We walk past the gravestones. I don’t look at those yet. Instead, I take her directly to the chapel. It was built on a hill. She’ll see why in a few minutes. She’s quiet as we walk, but her breathing is short, and every sound makes her jump. Her hair clings to her face now. She’s soaked through. The shivering, though, is probably a combination of fear and cold.

Two stone steps lead to the chapel door. They’re worn and uneven. We climb up and push the heavy, wooden door open. The scent of incense clings to the place, to every stone here. It’s been burnt here for centuries, the chapel used for Sunday mass weekly. Until six years ago, that is. I wonder if my mother will take up the tradition again.

Once we’re inside, I close the door and look around. I haven’t come here myself since my return to New Orleans. I’ll see it for the first time along with her.

I take it in, the ancient stone walls, the crooked windows with their stained-glass depicting scenes from the bible. Those are a more recent addition. Zeke must have updated them because I remember they’d been damaged by a storm before I’d left home. Six pews, three on each side of the aisle take up most of the space with a small baptismal font in one corner. The tabernacle lamp burns red on the altar but apart from that the candles are out, and no cloth is laid out on the ornate wooden altar. Zeke hasn’t been using it. I wonder when he was last here. When was the last time he came to tend to the graves, at least to Zoë and Kimberly. Probably hasn’t if I know my brother. And I don’t blame him.

I turn to Isabelle who is as still as the Christ over the altar. She stopped her struggling and is looking around curiously. She looks up at me and I find I can’t read her expression. I blame the lack of light.

I loosen my grip on her and we walk up the center aisle, coming to a stop before the carving in the large stone beneath our feet just before the altar. It’s why the chapel is built on a hill.

She turns her gaze to it.

“This is the grave of Draca St. James, the oldest recorded member of the St. James family, the one who bought this land from the Bishops and built his house upon it. He would be buried inside the chapel beside his wife. His first wife, that is. Not the second or the third.”

She glances up at me as I read the dates.

Draca St. James was born in 1682 and died in 1740. His wife, Mary, was born in 1690 and died in 1709.

I watch Isabelle as she reads their names, the dates of birth and death. She shudders. “She was nineteen when she died.”

“Your age,” I tell her. It’s a cruelty I allow myself.

I release her. Her eyes search mine in the dim tabernacle light.

“We bought the land from the Bishops. Did you know that?”

She swallows. Shakes her head.

“Your brother didn’t teach you?” I ask, walking a few paces to the altar where I see the familiar heavy tome that is the bible of the St. James family. Draca St. James’s diary. A ledger of his struggles, his victories. I set my fingers on the ornate wood etched with silver, caress it, open it to peer inside, to smell the scent of something old and decaying.

“I only learned I was half-Bishop three years ago,” she says, and I return to her.

“That’s three years. A family like the Bishops. You weren’t curious? Not even to know your neighbors?”

“There are miles between our houses. And I was dealing with the loss of my family.”

“Carlton Bishop is your family.”

“He’s not,” is all she says after a long moment.