The Wish Collector
Page 37

“Spiritual readings are a hundred and fifty.”
“Right,” Clara said, drawing out the word as understanding dawned. This woman was only going to answer questions if she paid her.
“I don’t have that much cash on me.”
“I take credit.”
Clara stared at her for a second, the woman’s dark gaze steadfast, without a hint of apology. “All right, but before I pay for a spiritual reading, I need to know if you’re a relative of Sibille Simoneaux.”
Fabienne looked over her shoulder and pointed to a picture high up on the wall in a grouping of other photographs.
Clara walked toward it, squinting her eyes as she peered at the picture of an old, old woman, her eyes milky white, as she seemed to stare straight into the camera. “That’s her?” she murmured, a small chill moving down her spine.
Those eyes . . . Clara swore they followed her as she walked slowly back to where Fabienne stood, though obviously even in life, they’d followed nothing.
“That’s Sibille,” Fabienne said.
Clara pulled her credit card from the inside pocket of her jacket, handing it over to Fabienne.
Fabienne took the card and swiped it on the card reader already plugged into her phone and then handed it to Clara to sign. Clara scrawled quickly, trying not to think about the fact that she had just given up a hundred and fifty dollars toward her car down payment. This had better be worth it, Clara thought, though she was already skeptical.
“What do you want to know?” Fabienne asked, sitting down on a black velvet sofa that had seen better days and crossing her long legs.
“Do I get a spiritual reading along with my questions?” Clara asked, taking a seat on the wooden chair across from her.
“That’s extra.”
That made absolutely no sense and Clara stopped just short of rolling her eyes. Not that she wanted a spiritual reading from the woman, who she had a feeling might have scammed her out of a hundred and fifty bucks.
“I’m interested in the story of John Whitfield, a southern soldier, and Angelina Loreaux, a slave. They’re the two spirits said to be trapped at Winisle Plantation.”
“Okay.” Clara was relieved. Fabienne knew of them and was willing to give information.
“Your”—what would Sibille be to Fabienne? A sixth great-grandmother maybe?—“relative spoke a riddle at a party that she said would break the curse put upon John Whitfield. The curse that somehow tangled Angelina as well and keeps them both trapped at Windisle Plantation. Do you know the riddle?”
“Refresh my memory.” Fabienne’s eyes darted up the stairs as a baby began to cry, but when the crying stopped a moment later, Fabienne’s gaze returned to Clara. Either the baby had cried out in sleep or someone had responded to it.
Clara bit at her lip, moving her mind back to their conversation. “Sibille said the only thing that could break the curse that Angelina’s mother, Mama Loreaux, put on John Whitfield, is a drop of Angelina’s blood being brought to the light.”
Fabienne stared at Clara, unmoved. “You believe in that?”
“Believe in . . . curses? Or that they can be broken?” She wasn’t sure about anything involving ghost stories, or curses, or riddles said to break them. It was all so . . . beyond her. But she didn’t know which other leads to follow that might provide the answers to the many questions swirling in her head.
Maybe the legend of Angelina and John being trapped wasn’t even true. Perhaps their spirits didn’t wander the rose garden, blind to the presence of the other, eternally trapped, despite the stories and the reported sightings, despite the definite weeping she’d experienced at the wall that day with Jonah.
But there was a reason John betrayed Angelina, a reason he never married Astrid Chamberlain, a reason—
“No. Curses are very real.” Fabienne leaned forward. “And every curse has a weak spot—something that, if done in the right way, will break it and set the person free.”
Fabienne pointed her finger at the gallery of portraits hanging on the wall. “That’s what that old blind priestess must have meant. Good luck solving the riddle.”
Clara frowned. Good luck? “That old blind priestess? I thought she was related to you.”
Fabienne shook her head. “I never said that.”
“But your last names—”
“There are thousands of Simoneauxes in New Orleans.”
Good grief. Clara sighed. She couldn’t even be mad. Clara had made all the assumptions while this woman had neatly convinced her to hand over a decent sum of money that she could have used better elsewhere. Great. She almost demanded Fabienne give her a refund, but was interrupted by the baby who began crying upstairs again, this time in earnest. Clara looked at Fabienne. “Do you have any knowledge at all of John Whitfield and Angelina Loreaux?”
Fabienne studied her nails for a second, though Clara sensed that her casual display was an act. Her muscles looked tensed to go to the crying baby. “Just what you told me. Sounds like quite the story.”
Clara’s shoulders dropped and she began to stand. “It is. You should look it up.” She turned to leave.
Fabienne stood too. “I can tell you one thing, though.” Clara turned back toward her. “Curses do not trap those they’re not intended for.”
“What . . . what do you mean?” Clara asked as the baby’s wail increased in strength and volume and Fabienne began inching toward a set of stairs that obviously led to living quarters.
“If there was a curse put on John, Angelina isn’t locked in it. If Angelina lingers, she lingers for him. For the soldier man.”
The baby let out another sharp wail and Clara nodded at Fabienne, thanking her before letting herself out the door of the shop.
For a moment she stood in the doorway overhang, Fabienne’s words ringing in her head. If Angelina lingers, she lingers for him. But why? Why would a woman linger for a man who, until the moment of her tragic death, she believed had betrayed her? Or . . . so the story went.
The bare bulb hanging in the doorway suddenly extinguished and Clara realized that in the time she’d been in the shop, sunset had come and gone.
The streets were now dark, though sounds—both distant and nearby—told her that this place was not as deserted as it seemed.
A dog barked, another answering, something that sounded like the lid of a garbage can clattered on the ground, someone laughed and glass broke just down the street, spurring Clara to begin walking toward the bus stop a couple of streets over.
She had planned on hiring an Uber to get to the shop, but there had been a wait for a driver when she’d gone to schedule one. A quick check of the bus schedule had told her she could get there more quickly that way.
She’d assumed it was an area full of plenty of well-lit businesses, but if that had been the case once upon a time, it definitely wasn’t now.
However, the chill that moved down her spine convinced her that rather than walking a few blocks in the unfamiliar, questionably safe neighborhood, she’d call for a ride.
She stopped walking, stepping into a shadowy doorway and taking her phone from her pocket.
“You here for me?”
Clara let out a startled yelp, whirling around to see a homeless man slumped in the corner. He laughed, holding up a bottle in a paper bag. “Join me, sweetheart.”
Clara stepped quickly from the doorway, mumbling some form of apology that didn’t even really register in her terrified brain. The man laughed as Clara hurried down the street.
Behind her, she heard footsteps, the sound of a shoe splashing in a puddle and she sped up even more.
“Hey, you,” someone else said, the voice deeper than that of the homeless man and close behind her. Another man called something to her she couldn’t hear, and when she looked behind her, she saw two men walking with a pair of muscled pit bulls. Her heart rate spiked, adrenaline racing through her.
Clara crossed the street, holding the pepper spray in a death grip in her pocket, her fear escalating when the men crossed the street, too, the dogs growling. Oh God. What had she gotten herself into?
She should have remained in Fabienne’s doorway and called an Uber from there and waited. Stupid, stupid.