Beautiful Creatures

I wasn’t following. “What do you mean, a deserter?”

“Lord, what do they teach you young’uns in that fancy high school a yours?” Aunt Grace was busy picking all the pretzels out of the Chex Mix.

“Deserters. The Confederates who ran out on Gen’ral Lee durin’ the War.” I must have looked confused because Aunt Prue felt compelled to elaborate. “There were two kinds a Confederate soldiers durin’ the War. The ones who supported the cause of Confed’racy and the ones whose families made them enlist.” Aunt Prue stood up and walked toward the counter, pacing back and forth like a real history teacher delivering a lecture.

“By 1865, Lee’s army was beaten, starvin’, and outnumbered. Some say the Rebels were losin’ faith, so they up and left. Deserted their regiments. Ethan Carter Wate was one of ’em. He was a deserter.” All three of them lowered their heads as if the shame was just too much for them.

“So you’re telling me he was erased from the family tree because he didn’t want to starve to death, fighting a losing war for the wrong side?”

“That’s one way a lookin’ at it, I suppose.”

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

Aunt Grace jumped up out of her chair, as much as any ninety-something-year-old woman can jump. “Don’t you sass us, Ethan. That tree was changed long before we were born.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am.” She smoothed her skirt and sat back down. “Why would my parents name me after some great-great-great-uncle who shamed the family?”

“Well, your mamma and daddy had their own ideas ’bout all that, what with all those books they read about the War. You know they’ve always been liberal. Who knows what they were thinkin’? You’d have ta ask your daddy.” Like there was any chance he would tell me. But knowing my parents’ sensibilities, my mom had probably been proud of Ethan Carter Wate. I was pretty proud, too. I ran my hand over the faded brown page of Aunt Prue’s scrapbook.

“What about the initials GKD? I think the G might stand for Genevieve,” I said, already knowing it did.

“GKD. Didn’t you date a boy with the initials GD once, Mercy?”

“I can’t recollect. Do you remember a GD, Grace?”

“GD… GD? No, I can’t say as I do.” I’d lost them.

“Oh my goodness. Look here at the time, girls. It’s time for church,” Aunt Mercy said.

Aunt Grace motioned toward the garage door. “Ethan, you be a good boy and pull the Cadillac around, ya hear. We just have ta put on our faces.”

I drove them four blocks to the afternoon service, at the Evangelical Missionary Baptist Church, and pushed Aunt Mercy’s wheelchair up the gravel driveway. This took longer than actually driving to the church because every two or three feet the chair would sink into the gravel and I’d have to wiggle it from side to side to free it, nearly tipping it and dumping my great-aunt into the dirt. By the time the preacher took the third testimony from an old lady who swore Jesus had saved her rosebushes from Japanese beetles or her quilting hand from arthritis, I was zoning out. I flipped the locket through my fingers, inside the pocket of my jeans. Why did it show us that vision? Why did it suddenly stop working?

Ethan. Stop. You don’t know what you’re doing.

Lena was in my head again.

Put it away!

The room started to disappear around me and I could feel Lena’s fingers grasping mine, as if she was there beside me—

Nothing could have prepared Genevieve for the sight of Greenbrier burning. The flames licked up its sides, eating away at the lattice and swallowing the veranda. Soldiers carried antiques and paintings out of the house, looting like common thieves. Where was everyone? Were they hiding in the woods like she was? Leaves crackled. She sensed someone behind her, but before she could turn around a muddy hand clamped over her mouth. She grabbed the person’s wrist with both hands, trying to break their hold.

“Genevieve, it’s me.” The hand loosened its grip.

“What are you doin’ here? Are you all right?” Genevieve threw her arms around the soldier, dressed in what was left of his once proud gray Confederate uniform.

“I am, darlin’,” Ethan said, but she knew he was lying.

“I thought you might be…”

Genevieve had only heard from Ethan in letters for the better part of the last two years, since he had enlisted, and she hadn’t received a letter since the Battle at Wilderness. Genevieve knew that many of the men who had followed Lee into that battle had never marched back out of Virginia. She had resigned herself to die a spinster. She had been so sure she had lost Ethan. It was almost unimaginable that he was alive, standing here, on this night.

“Where is the rest a your regiment?”

“The last I saw, they were outside a Summit.”

“What do you mean, the last you saw? Are they all dead?”

“I don’t know. When I left, they were still alive.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I deserted, Genevieve. I couldn’t fight one more day for somethin’ I didn’t believe in. Not after what I’ve seen. Most a the boys fightin’ with me didn’t even realize what this war is about—that they’re just spillin’ their blood over cotton.”

Ethan took her cold hands in his, rough with cuts. “I understand if you can’t marry me now. I don’t have any money and now I don’t have any honor.”

“I don’t care if you have any money, Ethan Carter Wate. You are the most honorable man I’ve ever known. And I don’t care if my daddy thinks our differences are too great to overcome. He’s wrong. You’re home now and we’re gonna get married.”

Genevieve clung to him, afraid he might disappear into thin air if she let go. The smell brought her back to the moment. The rancid smell of lemons burning, of their lives burning. “We have to head for the river. That’s where Mamma would go. She’d head south toward Aunt Marguerite’s place.” But Ethan never had time to answer. Someone was coming. Branches were cracking like someone was thrashing through the brush.

“Get behind me,” Ethan ordered, pushing Genevieve behind him with one arm and grabbing his rifle with the other. The brush parted and Ivy, Green-brier’s cook, stumbled into view. She was still in her nightgown, black with smoke. She screamed at the sight of the uniform, too frightened to notice it was gray, not blue.

“Ivy, are you all right?” Genevieve rushed forward to catch the old woman, who was already starting to fall.

“Miss Genevieve, what in the world are you doin’ out here?”

“I was tryin’ to get to Greenbrier. To warn y’all.”

“It’s too late for that, child, and it wouldn’t a done no good. Those Blue Birds broke down the doors and walked right into the house, like it was their own. They gave the place the once-over to see what they wanted to take, and then they just started settin’ fires.” It was almost impossible to understand her. She was hysterical, and every few seconds she was wracked with a fit of coughing, choking on both the smoke and her tears.

“In all my life I never seen the likes a devils like that. Burnin’ a house with women in it. Every one a them will have to answer to God Almighty Himself in the hereafter.” Ivy’s voice faltered.

It took a moment for Ivy’s words to register.

“What do you mean burnin’ a house with women in it?”

“I’m so sorry, child.”

Genevieve felt her legs buckle beneath her. She knelt in the mud, the rain running down her face, mixing with her tears. Her mother, her sister, Greenbrier—they were all gone.

Genevieve looked up at the sky.

“God’s the one who’s goin’ to have to answer to me.”

It pulled us out as fast as it had sucked us in. I was staring at the preacher again, and Lena was gone. I could feel her slip away.

Lena?

She didn’t answer. I sat in the church in a cold sweat, sandwiched between Aunt Mercy and Aunt Grace, who were fishing in their purses for change for the collection basket.

Burning a house with women in it, a house lined with lemon trees. A house where I’d bet Genevieve had lost her locket. A locket engraved with the day Lena was born, but over a hundred years before. No wonder Lena didn’t want to see the visions. I was starting to agree with her.

There were no coincidences.