I nodded, absently. “Sure, baby.” Then I raised my eyes to Dottie, encountering her sympathetic expression. “How can this be possible…?”
She gently closed the photo album. “That’s probably not a question for me, honey.”
The room began to spin in concert with the whirlwind of thoughts in my head, so I closed my eyes and took several deep breaths, managing to avoid tossing my actual cookies. When I opened them again, Dottie was watching me closely as if trying to determine if she needed to get more tea or grab a mop and bucket.
“May I borrow this album?” I asked, my tone flat, controlled as I tried to keep it together.
“Of course, honey,” she said. “Are you okay to drive home? Would you like me to take you?”
I shook my head and hefted the album onto one hip. “No. Thank you,” I said in a daze. “I’ll manage. Henry, baby, come on.”
I vaguely remember the short drive home. It didn’t give me much time to consider possible explanations, to figure out what questions I even needed to ask, but it wouldn’t have done any good to continue driving around. That only prolonged the inevitable.
As Henry and I made our way toward the elevator in Dawes House, I registered that some of the others had come out to the foyer, were greeting me, but I didn’trespond. None of them were who I needed to see, who I needed to hold me and assure me that the album was just an odd prank that wasn’t funny.
Whit was sitting on the couch when Henry and I entered, a glass of dark liquid in his hand, a bottle of Junior’s elderberry wine sitting on the end table beside him. He didn’t turn to look at us, but I could see from his profile that the proud, confident man I loved looked weary, defeated.
“Henry, baby,” I said softly, “why don’t you go play in your room for a while?”
He yawned but shrugged. “Yes, ma’am.”
As soon as Henry was in his room, I circled around to face Whit then set the album on the coffee table and flipped it open to the first photo.
He stared at it for a moment then let out a short, bitter laugh. “Gotta hand it to Dottie,” he said with mock praise, raising his wine glass in salute. “She played us all.”
“Whit?” I wasn’t sure what to do or say, but all my questions apparently came through in that one word.
He took another swig of his wine and heaved a sigh. “I had hoped things could be different for me,” he began. “I tried to avoid my family duty, spare you from all this.” He chuckled again, but this time it was heavy with sorrow. “Hell, I even eradicated family from several of our homes when they refused to support my leadership and change their ways. But this life it’s…” he lifted his glass, peering at it thoughtfully. “Intoxicating.”
I placed my palms on my belly where Whit’s child grew in my womb. “What do you mean by ‘eradicated’? Whit, are you drunk?”
He shook his head. “No. Can’t be. I wish I could be. Wish I could drink myself blind, pretend the truth was just a horrible nightmare that I could wake up from to find you there beside me and hold you until the world faded away again.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked, my throat tightening with my growing fear. “Baby, you’re scaring me.”
“No point in sugar-coating it now since Dottie’s interference has ruined my chance to ease you into our world.” He gestured toward the photo album and answered my unasked question. “Yes, Zellie, the people in that album are the same people you know and love. Me included.”
My knees suddenly weak, I sank down onto the other couch. But I couldn’t say a word.
“Some of us have been around for longer than others,” Whit continued with a shrug. “My father, Pearlie, June… It was a lot easier to hide the truth in the old days, taking only in moderation mostly from those no one would really miss or ones that could be explained away. June survived I don’t know how many witch trials. Pearlie moved among the royalty of Africa, Europe, England, amassing a fortune. And my father—the venerable Montgomery Proffitt asyouwould know him—has been gathering a family for longer than recorded history.”
I stared at him, hoping what he was saying was just a product of too much wine, no matter how much he denied it. It must’ve shown in my face.
He took another sip, topped it off with more from the bottle, then sighed. “It’s hard to wrap your head around, I know. Even those who have directly witnessed the truth find it impossible to believe. All the better for us, really. We had a bit of a scare in the 1600s when my father’s cousin Elizabeth’s insatiable appetite nearly exposed us all. All those poor young women…”
“Elizabeth?” I repeated. “Eliz—Báthory?”
He nodded. “I wasn’t there, of course,” he said. “I wasn’t born until the 1700s. I was raised in this house—did you know that? Well, notthishouse. My father built the original. He was going by Thomas Montgomery then. But people start to notice our idiosyncrasies after a while, so we moved during the British occupation of Savannah. That seemed like a good time to disappear. But he loved the house, and he hates giving up what’s his. That’s why he married Susanna Dawes when he returned under a different name, to reclaim what was his.”
“As Josef Proffitt,” I murmured.
Whit nodded. “He changed his name periodically as we moved among the network of properties the family had created. Unfortunately, those moves became more frequent as time wore on and communication, the media, improved.”
I pulled my hands down my face and laughed in a short burst that probably gave away how close I was to not being able to hold myself together.
Whit leaned forward to reach for me, but I shot to my feet, avoiding his touch. Needing to loosen the knot pulling tighter in my stomach, I paced the room, attempting to process everything. He was laying it out so logically, so matter-of-factly as if what he was telling me was just as ordinary as any other family’s history. But some things still didn’t fit.
I halted directly in front of him, keeping the coffee table between us. “Your father was an old man when I knew him, Whit. Explain that.”
