Kennedi
TUESDAY EVENING, OCTOBER 28TH
It was a balmy evening, the last day in October. Bryson and I were sitting on our lanai and enjoying the nice breeze and watching the leaves continue to fall. Someone not too far from our home was burning leaves. I could smell the scent rising in the air, the same way that I could see the smoke ascending. I knew that it wasn’t too far from our home.
Off in the distance, we could hear the high school’s marching band playing. We didn’t live far from the high school, and I surmised they were practicing for this weekend’s homecoming game.
I rocked back in my rocker and powered up my laptop to continue the research I had started this weekend, but got pulled away when Bryson needed some attention.
I had accessed the archives of the library database from Mooresboro County, where we had visited the Grace Gardens Bed and Breakfast Inn. It took a while, but I had finally found what I was searching for.
“That’s odd.”
“What’s that?” Bryson asked, turning his gaze from outdoors to look at me.
“This article that I found about the B&B.”
“What does it say?”
“According to this article, the area of land that we visited is empty. There’s just empty land there, and it has been for quite some time. They state that there used to be cabins and a large ‘main house’ up there decades ago, and that the house had existed for more than a century, but the cabins had been added long after the main house was built.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. This article states that the original owner, James Grace, returned five years after the death of his wife to confront the farm manager there. Apparently, the man had been married, but he had also seduced the Graces’ young daughter, Hope. When they learned she was pregnant, he forced her to lie to her parents and state that she had become pregnant by a traveling guest. He threatened to have her baby taken if she ever revealed the truth.”
“How do they know that?”
“According to this article, one of the farmhands, who had been in love with Hope all along, came forth to tell the truth when he was traveling with his family in Virginia and ran into James Grace. James thanked him for his honesty, and he returned to the farm a couple of days later after making arrangements for his daughter to remain with his sister in Cherokee Springs, Georgia.
“He traveled back to the farm and burned it down with all of its guests and existing workers, including the man who seduced his daughter and his wife. He then went away, and no one ever saw him again. This article states that the granddaughter was raised by his sister here in Cherokee Springs.”
“Damn. That’s crazy, but what do they mean that there’s nothing there now?”
“Well, the article was written ten years ago. But look at this . . .”
I turned the computer to him. “What’s this? Property records?”
“Yes, as of last year. It shows the land as still in the Grace family, but there are no buildings there.”
“That can’t be true, baby. We stayed there.”
“I know, but look, baby. Even these Google aerial photos show the land as empty.”
He looked at the photos that I had discovered. “There’s got to be a mistake.”
I told him about the woman at the bar and how she resembled the cook who was at the B&B, and he shared with me that he had the same experience with the front desk clerk, who strongly resembled the stripper who had given him the invitation. We both had encountered the issue with the staff that was there upon our departure, not recognizing the people we were talking about.
“Oh shit!” I exclaimed as I continued to scroll down the computer.
“What?”
“Look,” I answered and turned my laptop to face him.
His mouth dropped open and he mumbled, “What the fuck?”
On the screen before us was a family photo of two beautiful women and a man. Opposite their picture were the pictures of two other men, one identified as the married farm manager, and the other identified as the farmhand who helped James Grace find the truth.
The older woman was the woman at the bar who had given me the invitation and who was also the cook at the B&B.
