“I can’t wait to hear all your stories,” I say, squeezing her hand. “I feel like I’ve missed out on so much of your life.” And I have. Despite the short summer weekends I spent here as a child, my mother hadn’t visited in years, even though she and Marguerite got along miles better than she and my grandmother, who never had anything good to say about anyone. But now, in this moment, sitting in this room, with the clouds clearing and cheerful sparks of sunlight shimmering through the lace curtains, I’m struck with a powerful feeling of belonging. This is where I’m meant to be. It was right of me to come here.
After a few moments of quiet conversation, Marguerite suddenly stands, sending her coffee tumbling. It sloshes over my already-wet shoes and across the rug at my feet. Her eyes are fixed, staring straight ahead. “Do you see him?” she says, lifting her hand to point at the stairs leading to the second floor.
“What?” I glance at the staircase. There’s nothing there.
“That beast.”
“What beast?” A chill walks between my shoulder blades. Even though I can’t see a thing beyond the finely crafted banister and newel posts, an eerie sense of foreboding permeates the room, raising the hair on the back of my neck.
Aunt Marguerite pinches her eyes shut. “Oh, why won’t he leave me be?”
“There’s no one there, Auntie,” I say, trying my best to calm her.
“Heisthere. Watching us.” Marguerite stomps her foot like a child. “Go away!”
I take her by the arm, try to draw her back to the sofa. “There now, let’s sit back down. We were having such a nice chat.”
“I can’t take this anymore.” She wrenches free of my grasp with shocking strength and darts into the hall, shedding the shawl-covered peignoir as she flees. Panic floods my limbs as I follow her at a trot, unsure what to do.
Melva rushes out of the kitchen to meet me, eyes darting to the discarded clothing. “Oh, lord help us. We have to catch her before she gets outside. Harriet! Come quickly!”
A clatter of footsteps sounds from above and another woman in a maid’s uniform appears on the stairs, this one at least a decade younger than Melva and dark skinned, her hair tightly marcelled away from her face. “Where did she go?”
“I ... I’m not sure.” Now I’m the one wringing my hands helplessly.
“We’ll find her.” Harriet smiles tightly, and rushes down the hall. Melva and I trail her.
We find Marguerite in the rear gardens, huddled under a wisteria bower. Just a few yards away, the grounds fall off—a sheer drop of rocky bluff into the valley below. I shudder at what might have happened if we’d tarried longer. “Melva, go get a wrapper, please,” Harriet directs, doing her best to shield my aunt’s nakedness from view with her body.
I sink down to the ground next to them, feeling helpless. “Is she like this often?” I whisper to Harriet. “She said something about seeing a beast.”
“Yes. That’s one of her recurring hallucinations. These delusions come on quickly, without warning. They’re very real to her, and they’re dangerous.”
“I can see that.”
Harriet turns back to Marguerite, murmuring softly as she draws a stoppered syringe and a vial of liquid from her apron pocket. She pierces the top of the vial and fills the syringe with the contents, squirting a small drop of liquid from the tip. My eyes widen. A memory of the injections I received at Elm Ridge rolls through me—the awful sedatives that made my mouth feel like cotton and my muscles weak as jelly.
“Don’t worry,” Harriet says, reading my expression. “I know what I’m doing. This will only make her sleepy. Calm her.” She carefully inserts the needle in Marguerite’s shoulder, whispering soothing words as she depresses the plunger. Soon, Marguerite whimpers, then stills, her eyelids falling to half-mast.
“I’m not really a maid,” Harriet says. “As you might have gathered.”
Melva returns with a cotton wrapper, Beckett in tow. He turns his back as we dress Marguerite, who’s gone as limp and docile as a newborn kitten. “I’ll carry her inside,” Beckett says gruffly, bending to pick up my aunt. “This can’t keep happening, Harriet. She’s going to fall off that bluff one day.”
“I know,” Harriet says. “I’m doing the best I can, but she really needs to be in a nursing home. One with round-the-clock care.”
“You know as well as I that she won’t leave this house unless it’s feetfirst,” Beckett says, his tone softening as he looks down at my great-aunt. “This is her home.”
I hesitate before speaking. Seeing the severity of Marguerite’s condition for myself has lessened my earlier confidence in being able to care for her. Her turnabout in moods is shocking. Still, as I consider the frail, childlike form of my once vibrant aunt, I’m moved to compassion. “I’m going to stay with her,” I say, steeling my spine. “That’s why I’ve come. To help take care of her. She needs a companion. It should be someone in the family.”
Beckett shakes his head. “I don’t think you—”
My temper flares. “Icando this. I can.”
Harriet frowns thoughtfully, brown eyes creasing with concern. “That’s very noble of you. But youdorealize she won’t get better. Only worse. This was one of her tamer episodes. She’s been violent with me. She may be with you as well.”
“Will you show me what to do to help her when she’s like this?”
“Yes, miss,” Harriet says, “and I’ve promised to stay on with her indefinitely.” She coolly assesses me. “I’m a nurse. I had my training in Philadelphia, but I married an Arkansas man, and well ... the onlywork a colored woman can get down here is domestic work. But I don’t scrub toilets, and I don’t take kindly to disrespect.” She smiles tightly. “Just so you understand.”
