The Peach Keeper

FIVE

Unearthed

It was hard to believe on a day like today, when Willa and Rachel were so busy their lunch consisted of only filched cappuccino doughnuts and iced coffee from the café, but business on National Street actually fell off sharply after Thanksgiving. They could go days in the gray winter, sometimes an entire week, without a single customer. There was always a slight upswing in February, the town’s coldest month, when out-of-towners liked to hike into the national park to see the famous waterfalls when they froze, like bridal veils, against the mountains. But mostly, from December to April, those who made their living off tourists just suffered through, dreaming of warmer months, of kingfisher-blue skies and leaves so green they looked like they’d just been painted, as if the color would smear if you touched it.

It was those slow months leading into spring when many transplants got restless and decided to leave. Willa had seen it happen time and time again. Rachel had lasted here more than a year, but Willa could see how hard the cold months were on someone as hyper as she was. Willa was dreading this coming winter. She was afraid she was going to lose Rachel to it. And Rachel and her coffee and chocolate were the only things making life here bearable, the only things she really looked forward to now that the restoration of the Madam was almost complete and she didn’t have an excuse to drive up Jackson Hill every day to see how it was going.

“Willa, look,” Rachel said at about four o’clock that afternoon, when they finally had a quiet moment in the store. Willa turned to see that Rachel had stopped restocking the snack case at the coffee bar, and was looking out the window. “Tall, dark, and rich is heading this way.”

Willa looked up to see Colin Osgood walking by the store window, heading for the door.

“Oh, crap. Tell him I’m not here,” she said, and turned to the storeroom behind the counter.

“What is the matter with you?” Rachel called after her.

Willa disappeared, closing the door behind her, just as she heard the store bell ring.

What was the matter with her? That was a good question. But it was hard to explain, especially to someone like Rachel. The winters were tough on Willa, too—maybe even more so, because she knew she couldn’t leave. That was the big difference between Willa and Rachel, between Willa and all the other transplants. Her grandmother was here. Her father’s house was here. Her history was here. Sometimes she would lean against the front counter, chin in hand, and stare at the snow, craving something else, something different from life, which made her feel that nervous pull in her stomach, like how she would feel when weeks would go by in school after she’d promised herself she wouldn’t do anything stupid again. The feeling would just get worse and worse, until she found herself hanging a rope of leotards out the dance tower window at two in the morning, just so everyone coming to school would think that a group of dancers had gotten stuck up there and had to tie their clothes together and climb out naked.

That’s why she wanted to stay far, far away from Colin Osgood. No one, no one, had ever said that she’d inspired them before. No one had ever said they’d admired her for what she’d done. It went against everything she’d been told, everything anyone who had ever suffered through high school wanted to believe, that if you just tried hard enough, you could actually get away from who you used to be. But not for the first time, she found herself wondering: What if who she was then was her truer self?

She heard voices out in the store. The timbre of Colin’s low voice, Rachel’s laughter.

Then, suddenly, the knob to the storeroom was turning. Her back was to the door, so she instinctively pushed against it. But he had the advantage of more strength and momentum, and it was a losing battle. She gave up and stepped out of the way, letting the door fling open.

Colin reached out and caught the door before it hit the wall, then looked at her strangely. It had been a long day, and her hair felt about two feet thick, so at one point she’d taken a bandana from stock and used it to push her hair away from her face. Completing today’s lovely ensemble were jeans, platform sneakers, and a T-shirt that read: Go Au Naturel! Au Naturel Sporting Goods and Café, Walls of Water, North Carolina. It, of course, had a coffee stain on it. “Why were you leaning against the door?” he asked.

“I told you you wouldn’t see me if I saw you first.”

“I didn’t think that meant you would literally hide from me.”

“Not one of my finer moments,” she admitted.

He was wearing khakis and loafers. His aviators were tucked into the collar of his light blue T-shirt. He looked so put-together and in control of himself. This was apparently the unique power of all Osgoods—their ability to make her feel slightly out of control.

“What do you want, Colin?”

“I want you to come up to the Madam with me,” he said. “There’s something I want to show you.”

Okay, that got her attention, but then, he probably assumed that it would. “I can’t. I’m working,” she said. To prove her point, she picked up a box of paper cups and inched past him through the doorway.

“It won’t take long,” he said, following her across the store to the coffee bar. “We found something on the property today, and maybe you can help us figure out who it belonged to.”

“I doubt it. I don’t know anything about that house,” she said. And it was true, unfortunately. Her grandmother had never talked about her life there. She handed the cups to Rachel, who was giving her a very juvenile you’re-talking-to-a-boy look. She turned around and found Colin closer than she’d expected. “What did you find?”

He leaned forward, tall and easy, and smiled down on her. “Come with me and find out,” he said seductively. He smelled intriguing, different from the sandalwood and patchouli she was used to—the National Street set was notoriously bohemian. Colin’s scent was sharp and fresh, both foreign and oddly familiar. Green, expensive.

She took a step back. “I can’t.”

“Are you saying you’re not curious at all?”

“Oh, she’s curious,” Rachel said.

Willa cut her eyes at her.

“Then come with me,” Colin said. “It won’t take long.”

It was too much to resist. She’d been wanting to see it for over a year, and now she had the perfect excuse, one that didn’t involve evening dresses, small talk, or Paxton Osgood. It did, however, involve Colin Osgood, his confusing motives, and some definite sexual tension. But he would be leaving in a month, so it wasn’t as if she would have to hide from him forever. “Rachel, hold down the fort,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”

“Take your time,” Rachel said with a knowing smile. “I’m forming some theories about cappuccino with one raw sugar.”

Yes, Willa just bet she was.

“She remembered my order,” Colin said as he stepped ahead of Willa and opened the door for her.

“She does that. I’ll follow you in my Jeep,” she said as she started to turn to where she’d parked farther down the sidewalk.

He grabbed her elbow. “That’s okay. I’ll drive us.” He pointed to the big black Mercedes in front of them. He clicked the key fob he was holding, and the lights flashed and the doors unlocked. She recognized this car. It was hard to miss. It belonged to his father.

He stepped off the curb and opened the car door for her. She sighed, deciding that arguing would only take more time, and got in. She was almost swallowed by the huge leather seats. Once Colin got behind the big wheel—there was something seriously overcompensating about this car—he put on his aviators and backed out. He smoothly maneuvered the car through the traffic on National Street, one hand on the steering wheel, the other on his knee.

After several minutes of silence, she turned to him and said, “Why are you going to be here a whole month?”

The side of his mouth lifted at her insinuation that it felt like forever. “I took some time off to help Paxton with the Mad am. And to attend the gala.”

“Where do you live now?”

“New York is my home base. But I travel a lot.”

Just then they turned the corner to the steep driveway up to the Madam, and she stopped trying to make small talk. She’d never been beyond this point. She turned her attention away from Colin and watched the house as it got closer. Giddiness felt like her skin, her whole self, was stretching into a smile. This is going to be something significant, she thought. No ghosts. This is going to feel like coming home.

When he stopped the car in the luggage drop-off lane in front of the house, she couldn’t wait to get out. Something was off, though. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it. The wind blew in a sharp gust past her, sounding like voices in her ears. She turned in the direction of the wind and whispers. At the edge of the plateau, there was a backhoe at work and a few men in hard hats were standing around.

“The tree is gone,” she said, realizing what was missing.

Colin walked around to her side of the car. “The peach tree, yes.”

“It was a peach tree?” That surprised her. “I didn’t realize peach trees could grow at this elevation.”

“They can grow, they just can’t bear fruit. The springs are too cold here. Kills the buds.” He leaned against the car beside her.

“Then why plant a peach tree here?”

He shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. Paxton said it wasn’t in any of the old photos of the place, so it had to have come up after your family moved out. Since it’s not historical, and not fruit-bearing, she decided it could go.”

“How did you know it was a peach tree if it’s never borne fruit? I don’t think anyone knew it was a peach tree.”

“I’m a landscape architect,” he said.

It was all starting to make sense. “Ah. You’re doing the landscaping. That’s why you’re here.”

“Yes. I drew up the plans, then contracted the work out before I arrived. My biggest contribution was finding a live oak to put on the property. I found a one-hundred-and-fifty-year-old one over in Buncombe County. It was being threatened by development, and the developer didn’t want to get into it with the environmentalists, so he agreed to split the cost with us in order to transplant it here. It’s been almost a year in the making, getting the tree ready. The highway is going to have to close on Tuesday just to move it here.” He turned to her and smiled. “You should come watch.”

“Come watch you plant a tree? Gee, you know how to show a girl a good time.”

That made him laugh. “It’s a lot more than that. Trust me. How can you own a sporting goods store and not like nature?”

Before she could answer, one of the men at the dig site suddenly yelled, “Hey, Stick Man!”

Colin turned his head but otherwise didn’t move from his relaxed position, leaning against the car. She could feel a ripple of tension go through him, though. In what she knew with absolute certainty was a deliberate maneuver, he stared at the man who had called to him, until it became clear he wasn’t going to yell back.

The man sighed and walked from the dig site over to the car. As he got closer, Willa recognized him as Dave Jeffries. They had all gone to high school together. He’d been on the football team, and was still thick in the chest, though less from muscle these days. “What’s up, Dave?” Colin asked as soon as Dave stopped in front of him.

“Just after you left, we dug up something else.” He held up a heavy rusted cast-iron frying pan, still crusted with dirt.

Colin took it from him and studied it. “A frying pan?”

“Yep.”

“This just gets more interesting.”

Dave smiled when he saw Willa. “Willa Jackson,” he said, pushing his hard hat back. “I almost never see you around. Remember that time you programmed the period bell to ring every five minutes? That was great. We kept filing out into the hallway every five minutes, and the teachers kept trying to get us back into the classrooms.” He gave her an assessing look, then wagged his finger between her and Colin. “You and the Stick Man aren’t together, are you? Because you could give ol’ Dave a try if you’re lonely.”

“Tempting offer, Dave,” Willa said. “But no thanks.”

Dave laughed and punched Colin on the arm with what seemed like entirely too much force. But what did she know? Maybe it was a man thing. “Good luck,” he said to Colin.

As soon as he walked away, Willa turned to Colin and said, “Stick Man?”

“That’s what they used to call me in high school. Thanks to Dave.”

“Because you’re so tall?”

“That’s what everyone thought.”

She waited, then said, “You’re not going to tell me?”

He sighed. “Dave called me Stick Man because he said I acted like I had a stick up my ass.”

Willa was so surprised that she laughed without meaning to. She put her hand to her mouth and said, “Sorry.”

“Well, to be fair, it was true. I was a little rigid. It was how the men I knew acted, so I thought I was supposed to act that way, too. Guys like Dave loved to make fun of guys like me, guys who seemed to have no concept of fun. I can’t tell you how great it felt our senior year when everyone thought I was the Joker. They looked at me and thought, Wow, I didn’t know he had that in him.”

“I remember that feeling,” she said. Then, before they could get into another discussion about bravery, or her apparent lack of it now, she asked, “So, what did you want to show me here?”

He took off his sunglasses and hooked them on the collar of his shirt, then motioned for her to follow him up the steps to the front portico of the house. The place was huge, much larger than she’d imagined from a distance. It overwhelmed her. She’d spent so much time watching this place from a distance that it felt faintly surreal to actually be climbing the steps, to actually touch the columns.

“While digging up the stump of the peach tree today, we found some buried treasure. A suitcase and a fedora. And apparently a frying pan,” he added, giving the rusty thing a spin in his hand. “When they showed me the fedora, it gave me chills, because every kid who has broken into the Madam for the past forty years has claimed to see a floating fedora in the house. My grandmother used to scare us by telling us stories of the ghost who lived here.”

“Did you ever see it?” she asked.

“I kept my eyes closed the one time I broke in here with my friends,” he said. “And I will deny that if you ever tell another person.”

She gave him an odd look. Who would she tell?

“What about you?” he asked. “Did you ever see it?”

“I never broke in,” she said.

“Are you kidding me? All the stunts you pulled, and you never once broke into the Madam?”

“I’ve never been this close to it before.” She actually reached out and touched the side of the house, as if to make sure it was real.

“Why not?”

She let her hand drop, afraid that she looked silly. “For the same reason everyone else broke in. Ghosts. My grandmother told me those stories, too.”

“You’re afraid of ghosts?” he asked.

“I just think things that are laid to rest should stay there,” she said, realizing she sounded a lot like her grandmother. She stepped over to the suitcase sitting on the edge of the portico. It was made of black leather that was rotting and covered in dirt, but it was still surprisingly intact. The contents of the suitcase had been removed and were lined up neatly beside it, next to the fedora.

She crouched down and looked through everything, though she wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t as if she’d recognize anything from the time her grandmother lived here. Her grandmother’s life, as far as Georgie was concerned, started after she left this place.

The suitcase items were mostly dated men’s clothing in cotton and linen. But there was also a disintegrating newspaper and an open scrapbook. She carefully lifted the pages of the scrapbook and looked through it. It was bulging with clippings, its pages yellow and brittle with glue. Whoever this belonged to liked to follow what movie stars were doing in the 1930s. That seemed to be the purpose of the book. But every so often there were real photos. They were very old, of blurry people in an orchard of some sort.

“Do these trees in the background look like the peach tree that was planted here?” she asked, and Colin looked over her shoulder. He was considerably closer to her than she thought he needed to be, and there was no doubt in her mind that he was doing it on purpose.

“Yes, they do. Interesting clue.”

As she looked through the rest of the book, she found a high school diploma from Upton Orphan School for Boys in Upton, Texas, made out to someone named Tucker Devlin.

“Does any of this seem familiar?” Colin asked from behind her, where he was still arcing over her like a wave.

“Not really, just …” She stopped when she reached the last page. There was a single photo of a handsome man in a light suit, wearing a fedora, maybe the same fedora buried with the suitcase. He looked like he knew he was beautiful. He looked like he could get anything he wanted.

“What?” Colin asked.

“I don’t know. There’s something familiar about him.” Willa closed the scrapbook, not able to figure it out.

“That Asheville newspaper in the suitcase dates this back to August 1936, the year your family moved out,” Colin said as he stepped back.

“That was the month and year the Women’s Society Club formed, according to the invitations your sister sent,” Willa added as she stood. “I don’t know anything about this. Sorry. Some of my grandmother’s things are stored in my attic. Maybe there’s a clue to this Tucker Devlin person. I could look.”

“That would be great.” He smiled. “Would you like to see the inside of the house?”

It took everything she had not to shout, Yes, please!

He went to the huge eight-panel door with the hand-blown bull’s-eye glass on either side of it. There was a brass plaque to the left that read THE HISTORIC BLUE RIDGE MADAM INN. The door looked like it would be heavy, but it clicked open easily.

Her hands were actually shaking as she stepped inside to a cool blast from the past. The first thing she saw was the grand staircase hugging the wall in a long, curving slope. At the top of the staircase was a portrait of a woman with dark hair and gray eyes, wearing a stunning dark blue gown. She looked down on the lobby with a wistful expression.

It was overwhelming to think her grandmother had lived here like this. It was a hard thing to reconcile, the grandmother she knew and the one who had once flitted through these rooms, these lovely, opulent rooms. She wanted so desperately to feel connected to this place, to feel … something. But as she looked around, she couldn’t feel a thing.

Not a single thing.

The foyer had been turned into a lobby, and there was a dark cherry check-in desk to the side. A woman in jeans and a T-shirt was on the phone. When she saw Colin, she gave him a wave.

Colin waved back as he led Willa to the right, through an archway and into the dining room. Dozens of round tables filled the space, which was awash in light from the ceiling-high windows. There was a large wainscoted fireplace along one wall, flanked by period sitting chairs. “Paxton said she found a chef with five-star credentials. The Rebecca Restaurant will be open to the public, but apparently they’re booked into next year.”

“Why Rebecca?” she asked.

“That was the name of your great-great-grandfather’s wife. He built the Madam for her.”

“Oh,” she said, embarrassed that she didn’t know.

He led her out of the dining room and directly across the lobby to the opposite archway. “This was the original library,” Colin said. “Now it’s a sitting room. There will be afternoon tea served here for the guests.”

It, like most of the downstairs, was covered in dark paneling. There was a twin fireplace to the one in the restaurant, but flanking it were shelves full of old books. Ornately upholstered couches and chairs were scattered around.

The woman who’d been on the phone entered at that moment. “Sorry about that, Colin. It’s always something. I’m still trying to find a laundry service. Paxton threw me a curveball when she asked if the Madam might be ready for overnight guests the night of the gala.”

Colin made the introductions. “Willa, this is Maria, the manager. Paxton stole her away from the Grand Devereaux Inn in Charleston. She’s the best in the business. Maria, you’re looking at a direct Blue Ridge Madam descendant. This is Willa Jackson. Her ancestors built this place.”

“This is an honor,” Maria said. “Welcome, Willa.”

“Thank you,” Willa said. She was beginning to feel supremely uncomfortable, and heat was creeping up her neck. She didn’t belong here. Certainly, intellectually, she’d always known that. The house hadn’t been in her family for decades. That was why she’d stayed away. But she’d always harbored the hope, leftover from childhood, that somehow, magically, one day someone would realize that they’d got it all wrong and this was really all hers.

“Maria can back me up,” Colin said. “You’ve seen the fedora, haven’t you?”

Maria laughed. “I’m sure it was my imagination. Once you hear a place might be haunted, every creak becomes a ghost.”

“I’m going to show Willa around upstairs,” Colin said. “Are the guest rooms still unlocked?”

“Yes,” Maria said. “Enjoy.”

They walked back into the foyer. “Beyond the check-in desk is the banquet hall. That’s where the Women’s Society Club will be holding the gala,” Colin said as he and Willa walked up the stairs. Once they reached the top, Colin stopped at the portrait of the lady in blue. “That’s your great-great-grandmother, Rebecca Jackson. The painting was found wrapped in blankets in a closet. It’s a miracle it survived all the years of looting.”

Willa stared at her. So this was her grandmother’s grandmother. Did Grandmother Georgie know her? She had no idea. “I have her eyes,” she found herself saying.

“I know.”

“This is the first time I’ve ever seen her.”

Colin shook his head. “Paxton should have let you in on all of this. I don’t know why she didn’t.”

“I wouldn’t have been much help,” Willa said. “She did a great job on her own.”

“The guest rooms are this way.”

She stopped him from turning the corner. “No. I’ve seen enough.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. It’s a gorgeous place. Thanks for the tour, but I really have to get back. Sorry I couldn’t be more help with the buried treasure.” She thought she was past all of this. She had no idea why it was affecting her this way.

She started to turn. And that’s when the earth moved.

She paused, then met Colin’s dark eyes. He looked as confused as she was.

“Did you feel that?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said seriously. “And I don’t like it.”

“That’s not … the ghost, is it?”

He took a moment to smile at her, as if she’d said something cute.

Then he took off down the staircase. She followed him outside, only to feel that the shaking was more pronounced out in the open. The ground was rumbling, making the large outdoor chandelier sway.

Colin looked over to where they were digging up the roots of the peach tree, which had created a fairly significant hole. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say it feels like they hit a gas line. But there aren’t any gas lines here. And we had all the other underground utilities marked.”

The rumbling seemed to be getting louder, vibrating the air around them in waves that made Willa’s eardrums pound.

“Whatever it is, it’s going to blow. Get inside with Maria,” Colin said as he ran to the edge of the portico, waving his arms, trying to get the attention of the men at the dig site. “Get back,” he yelled. “Get back now!”

The men looked at him and didn’t hesitate. They ran with full force away from the hole.

Colin turned as the rumbling escalated. Willa hadn’t gone inside. She was still standing there, one hand against the wall now to keep her balance. He surprised her by grabbing her and flattening her against the side of the house. Several seconds passed, the rumbling escalating until she was sure something was going to happen. Something was going to explode. Crack. Fall away. Come to light. She squeezed her eyes shut and buried her face in Colin’s chest, her hands fisted in his shirt. But just as it reached its crescendo, the rumbling abruptly stopped and everything became eerily quiet, with the exception of the chandelier slowly creaking as it swayed.

Colin pulled back, and he and Willa looked at each other for one long, heated moment. Then they simultaneously turned toward the backhoe. A cluster of black-and-yellow birds had settled on the machinery and were looking into the hole. One of the men cautiously approached. When he looked in, the expression on his face registered complete shock.

“What is it?” Colin called.

He tipped his hard hat back. “You’re gonna want to see this for yourself.”

“Are you okay?” Colin asked, turning back to Willa. He cupped the side of her head with one palm.

Willa nodded as she slowly loosened her hold on his shirt. Colin stepped back, then jumped off the portico and walked toward the hole. After a few deep breaths, Willa followed.

Colin got there first and looked in. “Jesus Christ.”

“What is it?” she asked.

“I think we just found the owner of the suitcase,” Colin said.

Willa looked in the hole. It took a moment to realize that what she thought was a large stone wasn’t a stone at all.

It was a human skull.