Chapter Nine

Angel Rose tried to go back to sleep; tried to recapture the dream so she could figure out why it was important, but she couldn’t. All she could do was recall the heady scent of hundreds of rhododendrons with something else underneath it; something unpleasant and foul.

Sighing, she got out of bed. If she wasn’t going to go back to sleep, she may as well get a jump on the day. She’d at least be able to get through the mail she neglected yesterday. She took a quick shower and dressed in jeans and a t-shirt in deference to the weekend, and wound her hair in to a knot at the nape of her neck. The short drive back across town perked her up somewhat, and she plowed through the pile of post on her desk. When she had everything filed or answered, she checked the time and was dismayed to find it was still early. With nothing pressing demanding her attention, she started to feel the pull of the records upstairs.

“You know you want to help him, so just go do it already,” she said to herself. She grabbed the door pager for just in case and went upstairs to the microfiche room where she began to pull reels from the years relevant to the Maddox mystery. She would print out the articles and add then to his pile.

As she scrolled through the film, scanning articles and pictures, that peculiar itching began at the back of her brain again. When she concentrated on it, flashes from the dream last night came back to her – the lake, the noise in the bushes, the rhododendrons. She stopped and sat back in her chair. Could they be related? Did she have a vision of the past instead of a premonition? It wouldn’t be the first time that had happened, either. As she blindly printed off page after page of accounts of the Maddox woman’s disappearance, the itch grew a voice, and she heard unintelligible whispers.

Trying to ignore the whispering, Angel Rose straightened the stack of papers that had accumulated next to her terminal. As she placed them back on the desk, a few slipped off the top of the stack and fluttered to the floor.

“Dammit,” she muttered, as she squatted to pick up the errant sheets. “Oh my God,” she squeaked. She felt behind her for her chair and dragged herself up into it. She was staring into her mother’s face. She quickly scanned the caption on the photo. “Kirstin Maddox,” she said.

She reached for her phone and speed-dialed her mother.

“Hello, my darling daughter,” Kelly said. “To what do I owe this pleasure so early on a Saturday morning?”

“Hi Mom. Sorry it’s so early. I’m doing some research for a new homeowner, and came across a picture of a woman that looks just like you.”

“Like me? I’m pretty sure I’ve never been in Mississippi – and I’m sure I’ve never been photographed there.”

“It’s not you-you,” Angel Rose said. “It’s a photo from back in the 1800’s of someone who looks like you. Did you and Joy talk about her family?”

“Of course – you think this may be an ancestor?”

“She has to be. Were there any Maddoxes in Joy’s family tree?”

“Maddox? Let me find Joy’s photo albums. Hang on.”

Angel Rose tapped her fingers nervously on the desk while her mother searched. A buzz at her waist startled her. She glanced at the clock and was surprised to see more than an hour had passed since she sat down at the machine. She hurried to the doorway and called out, “I’ll be right down!” She straightened the papers into a pile so she could give them to Richie.

“It’s just me, Angel Rose,” he called back. “I’ve grabbed the keys; I’m coming up.” His heavy boots thumped quickly up the stairs, and when he came to a halt outside the open door, he leaned on the jamb. “So, couldn’t wait to get to work today?”

Ang smiled. “Something like that. OH, hang on a sec. Yes, mom?” She held up a finger while she listened to her mother’s response. Her smile faltered a little when her mother answered the question at hand. “Well, that explains it. Thanks Mom. Love to Dad, and I’ll see you soon, okay? My client’s here.” She was quiet for a moment more. “Love you too. Bye.” She hung up the phone and smiled at Richie. “Sorry about that. Anyway, I was able to pull a few years’ worth of newspaper articles from fiche. There are articles from the disappearance, I started there, and went backwards to the Maddox wedding. I figure anything before or after that, you could get later if you were so inclined.” She wasn’t going to say anything about Kirstin Maddox being an ancestor. Not yet anyway.

Richie clapped his hands together once, smiling widely. “That’s just great, Angel Rose. Thank you.” He strode into room to help gather the piles of copy paper that sat next to a complicated-looking machine. He started riffling through the sheets. “I’ll start on these; bring ‘em into the other room and get ‘em sorted out.”

“Great,” Angel Rose said, yawning widely. “I’ll go make some more coffee, and will be back up in a little bit.”

Richie didn’t hear her; he was staring, mouth agape, at the paper in his hand. “Holy shit,” he whispered.

“Something wrong?” Angel Rose asked. She frowned as a knot formed in the pit of her stomach.

He turned the piece of paper toward her, so she could see the photo that had accompanied the article. “This woman. I dreamed of her last night,” Richie said quietly. He almost added “again”, but he wasn’t quite ready to admit that.

“Who is she?” Angel Rose countered. The knot unraveled, letting dread spread through her belly.

“Uh,” Richie said, scanning the article for a name. “This says it’s Kirstin Maddox,” Richie said. His arms dropped to his sides, and he stared off into space.

“You dreamed about her?” Ang answered. “What happened?”

“I was having lunch in the maze by the fountain,” Richie started. A light blush tinged Richie’s cheeks. “With you in fact.”

All the color leeched out of Angel Rose’s face. That’s what happened in HER dream, too. A chill pulsed through her as she realized that her dream wasn’t a premonition, and it wasn’t a remembered past event. What was it then – a shared dream? She couldn’t remember that happening before. But if it was a shared dream, the earlier questions she had about the dream were answered. Richie obviously had some sort of link with Kirstin, and apparently had some link to her – or Kirstin did – that allowed them to share something on a sub-conscious plane. Her head dropped back for a moment, and Ang stared at the ceiling. The possibilities and potential repercussions were giving her a headache.

“We went for a walk, you and me,” Richie continued, not noticing her discomfort, “then all of a sudden, you were gone, and SHE,” he held up the paper again, rattling it loudly, “was there.” He absently began rubbing the marks on his arm while he stared at the picture. “She didn’t say anything, just looked at me like she was lost. I tried to talk to her, but she just shook her head and disappeared. Then I woke up, and I felt all weird inside, and couldn’t go back to sleep.” He clamped his lips closed before he told her the rest of the story of having warm beer for breakfast to try to calm his nerves, grabbing his guitar and suitcase, and spending the wee hours of the morning in his truck wondering whether he should stay or go, all because the house made him uneasy.

“Hmm, maybe you saw a picture of her somewhere else in your pile of stuff and she stuck?” Ang asked softly.

“I guess,” Richie said, “but why did it feel so real? I mean, I could taste the food we were eating. I could smell the flowers.” Angel Rose looked like she was going to answer him and he held up a hand to stop her – he was freaked out enough. “No, no, no; on second thought, I don’t want to know. What do we do now?”

Angel Rose let her cheeks puff out, and forced the puff of breath from them. “Well, let’s get this stuff sorted out, and we can start a timeline. Do you want to start with the most recent stuff or the oldest?” Richie just stood there, staring at the copy of the photo in his hands. Angel Rose crossed to him and put a hand on his arm briefly, and the shock had him looking into her eyes. “Oldest first or newest?” she said again.

“Newest,” Richie said. “Not that the other stuff wouldn’t be interesting, but the mystery really starts with the recent history right?”

“Right,” Angel Rose said. She led Richie down the hall, and waited for him to unlock the door. He did so, though he seemed to have trouble pulling his gaze away from the article in his hand. After a few minutes, he put the printout on the stack of papers from the most recent year, and went on to the next.

Two hours and three pots of coffee later, Angel Rose had helped Richie put together a rough timeline. She had taped butcher paper along one wall, and Richie started from the first pile, calling out events and dates that Ang wrote on the paper. When he got to the stack for 1866, he said, “And here’s an article about the history of the house; it says that it was a stop on the Underground Railroad in ’61.” He looked up and grinned. “I already knew that.”

Angel Rose made a notation on the timeline. “Really? I didn’t think there were many sympathizers in the South.”

Richie smiled. “Marty told me a little about it when we found that door under the cellar stairs.” He started to relate the same story that Marty had told him, but stopped when he saw Ang’s eyes go wide. “What is it?”

“You found a door? You mean to a secret room?” Riche nodded. “That is SO cool.”

“It really is,” Richie agreed. “It’s nothing but a dark hollow, earth floors and walls, but it’s cool.” He flipped through more papers. “I wonder if there’d be more about the railroad in other newspaper stories.”

“There could be,” Angel Rose said. “So the room, where was it exactly?”

Richie smiled at her enthusiasm. “There’s this stairwell leading down to the kitchen in the basement. Under the stairs there’s this wooden door, like for a pantry or storage or something. Inside that little alcove is another little door that led to the hidden room.”

“Wow,” she replied.

Richie pursed his lips for a minute. “Hey, you wanna come see it? It’s not much in and of itself to look at, but it does get you wondering what it must have been like back then.”

Angel Rose didn’t even stop to think about what her curse would pick up in that history-rich space -- she just knew she wanted to see it. “Absolutely; that would be amazing. But let’s finish this timeline first – you’ve only got a couple piles left. Then it’ll be on to the details.”

They made quick work of the rest of the paper, then locked up, and were on their way.