I crouch, retying the laces on my sneakers. The knots haven’t loosened, but it gives me a moment to compose myself. A minute later I’m in control once more, and I smile at Wyatt when I stand. He returns it, no idea—thank goodness, because we are in the early days of love, when you want to appear flawless—about the emotions churning inside me.
“Now, there’s a kink in the ‘hang in the square’ plan, because turns out Alice is pregnant, with Willy-the-Worst’s baby. This is where the story breaks off into a few paths. Some say she was hanged pregnant, and so now her ghost follows mothers with infants and pregnant women, because she wants to take their babies as her own. Another version is that she was a witch, and cursed all Savannah’s residents, and this hex is the reason Spanish moss—which as you’ve probably noticed is on all the oak trees in this city—doesn’t grow on that particular tree.”
Sharon points at the great oak near us, and we all look up into thedark branches. Sure enough, there appears to be no moss hanging. Someone gasps, and there is a murmur of agreement among us that, yes, thatisa bizarre thing.
“The most likely version, at least in my opinion, is that they imprison her until her baby is born—a boy named James, who sadly later dies—and then she’s hanged, the first woman to be hanged in the square…right in that spot there.” She points again, this time at a plaque right under my feet. I step back as though the ground is about to give way.
“Some say the reason Spanish moss isn’t found here is because it can’t grow where innocent blood has spilled, meaning that Alice Riley was not a murderer after all.”
Later, over drinks, Wyatt and I talk about the twenty or so ghost stories Sharon delivered on the two-hour walking tour and about the fun of being a tourist in your own city, and how strange it was that at various moments on the tour we both felt cold shivers, even with the evening’s warmth.
Wyatt jokes that one of the ghost tour providers probably skulks around in the middle of the night with a ladder to remove any Spanish moss that tries to take up residence in that oak. Otherwise, the ghost story of Alice Riley lacks the pizzazz and impact it needs to continue to be retold night after night, tour after tour. Half-drunk and giddy with our newfound love, we laugh imagining that stealthy guy and his ladder.
—
On my way home from my breath work class I stop at Wright Square, a place I visit often. Usually I sit on a bench, staring at the spot where Alice was supposedly hanged, now covered by a small splash pad for children, the concrete lining painted bright blue, with smiling cartoon sea turtles and big-eyed puffer fish. The plaque is long gone, but the air here feels unsettled, heavy with something best described as melancholy.
The splash pad has emptied, all the young children home and tucked into bed at this hour. I think again of Alice Riley and imagine a different reality, one where Alice raised her son, James, and where I’m watching Clementine and Poppy play together in the splash pad—two gold rings proudly displayed on my necklace. Indulging in this fantasy is like pressing an angry purplish bruise, but it’s pain I revel in. I’m not a religious person, and this ritual is the closest to atonement I have.
I stare up at the same oak tree from that ghost tour, years ago now. The branches are wider, the canopy fuller, and yet, it remains the only tree in the square that’s free of Spanish moss. I shiver, thinking of Alice Riley’s execution, the spilling of “innocent blood.”
Layered over the pain of losing Poppy is a heavy blanket of guilt I’ve wrapped tightly around myself. When I saw the pregnancy test—the blinking results window announcing five weeks with a smiling face—I couldn’t believe it, my first emotion regret, and it filled me to the brim. It wasn’t planned, and I didn’t want to be pregnant again so soon after Clementine. She was barely four months old! I was overwhelmed with new motherhood, and I missed my work. Wyatt, by comparison, was thrilled. He saw only the positives, his body and brain still his own. Under his complete control.
I’ve never told anyone about my dark, unconscionable thoughts surrounding that pregnancy, and howfor a momentI wished it all away. Until I shared it with an AI therapist named “Paige,” thanks to a mental wellness initiative GIA implemented as part of a new benefits package, and a weak moment of wishing to expel my guilt. At the time, I hadn’t considered the ramifications of sharing my shameful secret, confidentially, I believed. But that was before infertility, before the MotherWise IVF subsidies that required a deep dive into my health records—all of which Wyatt, as the expectant father, would be privy to.
A couple walks into the square, holding hands, laughing about something. They see me, and the woman waves and smiles. I smileback, quickly gathering my things as I note the time on my watch. I’ve been here too long. I need to stop coming here.
Something flutters nearby, and I’m startled, my bag slipping from my hand.
“Oh!” I whisper, my voice low but sharp with a tiny burst of fear-laden adrenaline.Is that a bat?I duck slightly, looking around. But then something lands on the bench, beside where I sat moments ago. At first I think it’s a butterfly, but, no, it’s a moth. A large one, with wings an ethereal pale green and delicate dangling tails.
A luna moth.
Shock moves through me in rippling waves. Luna moths aren’t exactly rare, but seeing one is—especially here in Savannah. I’ve only seen a luna moth once before, back home when Mom and I visited the cottage of a friend of hers. It rested on the screen door, attracted along with the bugs and mosquitoes to the small porch light, hauntingly beautiful.
What are the chances?
I’m about to snap a photo with my watch when the moth lifts off, soon a small speck of paleness against the dark sky. “Shoot,” I whisper, disappointed to not be able to show Clementine such a rare thing.
There’s a sudden soft breeze against my neck, the whisper of wings, and my mother’s voice comes to me again—but this time it’s from a memory.
Did you know all art is made by the dead, Mathilde?
It was early evening, the fading light filtering through the conservation room’s tall, arched windows. A half dozen canvases, each in various stages of treatment, were clasped on nearby workstations. The room smelled lightly of acetone and the navel orange I’d recently peeled.
We were alone, the last of her museum colleagues leaving as we arrived. Mom had missed most of the afternoon because I had an unfortunate run-in with a field hockey stick during gym class. I sat on her stool, spinning it slowly in circles, nibbling a sweet orange wedge as she gathered the files she needed for that evening’s work session. I was impatient to leave, the way teenagers get with any plans other than their own, but kept busy sharing photos of my three stitches and black eye on Snapchat.
A moment later I realized how quiet the room had gone and glanced up from my phone. Mom stood at the end of her workstation, across from where I sat, staring over my shoulder.
“You good?” I asked, raising one brow, then wincing at the pain. Ifollowed her gaze to the item behind me. Leclerc’sThe Child, and Mom’s current project. I couldn’t see much of it, the painting draped in protective plastic. “Mom, is everything okay?”
“Did you know all art is made by the dead, Mathilde?”
“Huh?” I remember feeling confused at first, then concerned by her odd question and the flat tone of her voice. “You mean, all the arthere?”
I glanced around the room then, at the various canvases, thinking about the long-dead artists who had painted them. I got a strange feeling in my stomach and put the rest of the orange down.
“Yes, all this art,” she said, a faint smile tugging one corner of her mouth. Her eyes seemed unfocused, and too much of their whites showed. Like they’d rolled back slightly.
