Rassmussen Plantation part 8

Just so you know, this was all typed in class while I pretended to pay attention. Because this class is ridiculous and boring. Today. Usually it is very interesting.

Chapter Eight

As soon as sunlight filtered in through Cinnamon’s window she was putting on her overalls and cap. She tied the silver-handled brushed in a rag and threw them in her knapsack. She then moved the furniture away from her door and fairly flew down the stairs and out the door, and down the long, oak-lined entrance to the main road, Tybalt close at her heels.

But what would she tell people? She couldn’t tell them the truth, certainly. Last night made her realize how vulnerable she really was, all alone in the mansion. She didn’t want to advertise that fact to a town full of strangers.

She wouldn’t tell them anything, that’s what she’d tell them. What did they need to know fro, anyhow. She’d just go pawn the silver, and buy a gun. And a dog!

Cinnamon glanced down at Tybalt, wondering how he’d take a dog. A German Shepherd. She’d always liked the breed, and they made good guardians, she’d heard. A gun and a dog. What else should she get? A dagger. Maybe a dagger was overreacting, but it would let her sleep better. Maybe she’d get two pistols. Thus armed, she’d go back to the mansion and make a bolt for every door that lead in from the outdoors, and on every door that allowed immediate access to her room. 

Daylight has a way of calming a person, steadying them. Cinnamon was calmer and steadier now; her pace slowed and her heart rate did the same. The dirt road was just a dirt road, and the walk to town was no longer a flee-or-your-life affair, it was just a long walk to town. In her haste Cinnamon had not put on any shoes, and she pondered how the town would take her dirty bare feet. She’d be a conversation piece, certainly. The barefooted girl who dressed like a boy and lived in a haunted mansion.

“It’s not really haunted, you know,” Cinnamon kicked at the dust and addressed her cat, “That’s just an old story. We just have to keep our heads together and worry about real monsters, like people who break into your house and burglarize your house, not ghosts who walk up and down the hall, rattling their chains and moaning.”

Cinnamon stopped walking for a moment, leaned down, scooped her cat into her arms and kissed his head, then started walking again.

“Why do you suppose the house has never been burglarized before?” she mused, more to herself than to her cat, “Sitting there for fifty years, and the silver is still in the drawers. Then I move in, and there’s a break in.”

Maybe they came for you.

Cinnamon stopped in her tracks with that thought. Impossible. She had nothing. What could anyone want from her? Maybe someone was jealous. Perhaps someone else felt that the plantation should be theirs. Her claim on the place was, well, unique. She started walking again, and fought the mental image of a ghostly woman jealously evicting her from the mansion.

“Whatever…WHOever it is, they’re a real person, and the plantation is mine now, Tybalt.” Cinnamon said finally, “And I’ll shoot them tomorrow if they come back. And then we’ll see, won’t we?”

“We will,” thought Tybalt.

Sometime in the late morning the dusty couple reached the town. As predicted, they attracted their share of gawkers. In a small town, visitors are a rarity and Cinnamon suspected she was something of a cross between celebrity and scandal.

Cinnamon heard some neighborhood dogs barking and scooped Tybalt back up again, and put him in her bag with his head sticking out. Tybalt tolerated this much better than most other cats would. He was used to Cinnamon and her quirks.

Cinnamon pretended not to notice the looks she was getting and focused instead on the signs above the shop doors.

Mercantile

General

Leatherwork

Blacksmith

Gunsmith (that would have to wait until she found the…)

Pawn

Pawn. Perfect. Cinnamon turned her bare feet in the direction of the shop, stepped up onto the boardwalk and then up to the shop door. She tucked her stray hairs up under her newsboy cap, took a quick peek inside, and, finding it empty except for the man behind the counter and one other person, a middle-aged woman who was snooping through the pans, she pushed the door open.

Cinnamon tugged at her cap just a bit in an attempt to be discreet, walked up to the counter, and, in her best impersonation of a boy’s voice, (she’d previously determined that boys were taken more seriously at pawn shops) said, “Hey mister. What’s the goin’ rate for silver?”

The mustached man looked her over a moment and drawled, “Wa-al… What d’ya have?”

Cinnamon swung her bag to the ground and let Tybalt out, then rifled around a moment and pulled out the silver-handled brushes.

“Whar’d  ya get these from, sonny?” the man asked.

“My mam.” Cinnamon replied, wishing the man wouldn’t make her talk so much.

“Yer mammy know her boy is selling off her brushes?”

“She’s dead and she don’t brush her hair no more.”

The man kerfuffled for a moment, “No offense meant, no offense meant,” and inspected the silver.

Cinnamon escaped with more money than she had counted on and waited until she was out of the shopkeeper’s sight  before she let her hair back down. She suspected she’d be back to that shop again.

Rassmussen Special Post

Fun facts and dedications in Legend of the Rassmussen Plantation; - see if you can figure out why!

1.      The relationship between Tybalt and Cinnamon is based on Ginger and LaRee.

2.      The Eau d’Nior Plantation is dedicated to Uncle Ryan.

3.      Alyce Rassmussen is dedicated to my Aunt Heather.

4.      The moldering feast on the ballroom tables is dedicated to Nanny.

5.      Cinnamon’s instinctive fear of nearly everything is actually based on me- and from my own fears came this story. It’s the CIIIIIRCLE OF LIIIIIIIFE.

6.      Alexandra and her mother Cindy are actual people- who helped me out when I needed them, just as they help Cinnamon when she needs them. I AM FOREVER GRATEFUL.

7.      Cinnamon’s spunky attitude is based on my sister Belle and her funny, colloquial way of talking is based on my sister Shanny.

8.      The Eau d’Nior Plantation is based on both the Gracey Mansion in Disneyland and the Big House at Big Canyon Ranch.

9.      Your comments make me keep writing this book! The more feedback you give me, the quicker and better this book will be done. (Tell me what you think is going to happen, what you want to see happen, what scene from the book really sticks with you, what you would do if you were in Cinnamon’s ( or Tybalt’s or anyone’s) shoes…)

10.  The last name ‘Rassmussen’ is used because it reminds me of ‘Rasputin’ who scares me to death, partly because of my fascination with Princess Anastasia. I love a good mystery.

Rassmussen Plantation part 7

Tybalt heard Cinnamon stirring as he slinked back into the house, just a toss in her bed, and hurried up to see her. She was asleep. Tybalt jumped up onto her bed, purring contentedly. He noticed that his friend was not in the room, and had just begun to wonder where he was, when voices came from downstairs.

Being a cat, Tybalt could usually figure out what Cinnamon was saying because he had been with her for so long, but when humans got together and did their chatter chatter chatter, talk talk talk, he could only follow the basic tone of their voices. These voices were hushed, but strong. A male and a female. He had never heard his shadow-friend’s voice, but suspected that the male was his friend, and the female was not.

The voices kept strangely low, for Tybalt could scarcely hear them, but he knew they were fighting. The woman’s voice changed suddenly in something very close to a snarl, and Tybalt jumped to his feet as he heard quick steps running up the stairs. The footsteps hadn’t reached the top of the stairs when Tybalt heard a physical fight start, and then the sound of something shattering, and the female screamed. The footsteps receded down the long hall and Cinnamon jerked into consciousness.

“Who’s there?!” she demanded, her voice sounding much braver than she felt.

Cinnamon wanted a weapon very badly. The closest thing she could use was her candlestick, which was large and heavy. Vowing to purchase a pistol the very next day, she wrapped a fist around her makeshift weapon and rose from her bed. She walked quietly to her door and sneaked a look thru the crack.

Nothing.

“Who’s there, I said!? I have a pistol and I know how to use it!” Cinnamon lied, hoping her visitor would not gamble to find out.

The house was still in reply.

Cinnamon summoned all her courage and flung her door open, stepping boldly out into the hall, in a sham of fearlessness.  As she looked around she saw a table in the hall had a broken leg, and the statuettes on top of it had been broken and scattered.

“Who’s there, I say!?” Cinnamon whirled around, looking for someone, anyone.

There was no answer but the wind, banging a few shutters somewhere in the vast house.

Cinnamon retreated back into her room, making sure that her cat was with her, and locked the door, and moved all of the furniture in the room in front of it. She was certain that no oncould reach her window, but she locked the glass and bolted the shutters just the same.

She lit her candle, and wrapped herself in blankets on her bed, watching her shutters for the first rays of sun that would tell her the awful darkness of the night was gone, and it was safe now to run to town.

Cinnamon nodded off a few times, but jerked awake either from instinct, or from fleeting dreams.

It was a long night before the sun rose again.

Rassmussen Plantation part 6

 

Chapter Seven

Alyce Rassmussen never died; her scent still lingered in the hallways, her image still stared from their portraits and reflected in the windows. Cinnamon thought that if she ever dared to venture into Alyce’s room, she’d find the girl still laying in her bed, or brushing her hair at her vanity. Cinnamon seemed to sense her everywhere- even as she walked through the corridors of the house she would glance up from time to time, the way a person does when a movement catches their eye. But Alyce was never there. Alyce was cold and buried in the family crypt.

The Crypt! Why hadn’t she thought of that before? Alyce’s name would be inscribed on the wall, and her coffin encased within. Why, that would surely put her mind to rest.

Cinnamon glanced worriedly out at the lowering sun, but struck a match and lit a candelabra. The map of the plantation she had seen when she first come here had shown the crypt was past the garden and across the green, almost to the edge of the bayous. She stepped out onto the back steps and took a quick look around.

“You morbid girl,” she chastened herself, stepping down off the stairs and onto the grass and across the garden, “You crazy, morbid thing.”

Halfway across the lawn, she stopped. It was getting so dark. Surely this little errand could wait until morning. She turned back toward the house, but only took two steps before turning back toward the crypt.

“Cinnamon,” she told herself, “You are going to feel very silly when this all turns out to be your imagination.”

As she walked she felt her feet begin to falter her, and with added courage and resolve she forced them to take her toward the crypt, now visible in the distance. A cold chill of fear ran up the back of Cinnamon’s legs, and she suddenly wished that she had brought Tybalt with her. Or a pair of shoes; she realized that she was barefoot.

The family crypt had stood for as long as the mansion, and the cemetery around the crypt had been dug from the day that Rassmussens had bought the land for their plantation. There was a waist-high steel gate around the whole of it, which creaked as it admitted Cinnamon through. A slight wind picked up an blew Cinnamon’s hair over her shoulder and made the candles dance dangerously close to their demise, but Cinnamon reached the shelter of the crypt’s wall before they could. The crypt was a concrete structure, a dome-top with Greek architecture, Corinthian columns all around it, and vines running all over. The Spanish moss hanging from above swayed serenely in the breeze, but the sound of wind through the trees gave Cinnamon a creepy feeling, so she looked around for a way in.

“You’re going to kill yourself.” Cinnamon thought, “A girl afraid of the dark, going to the crypt and the sun is down.”

When she found the handle, her heart fluttered a bit, and she felt a wave of honest relief to see that there was a large, brazen lock on the door.

“Of course,” she thought, “Of course the door is locked. You’d have graverobbers if you didn’t.”

She gave the door a good push, just in case. The door wasn’t locked, but did not open. It opened just a few inches, but then stopped as if it was stuck on something.

She remembered when she was a little girl, still at home, and her family would play pranks on her. They knew her jumpy, flighty nature, and thought it was great fun to frighten her. Her brothers would stand behind a door, let it  open just a few inches, but no more. She’d scream and kick to get through, and pound in it with her fists, and finally they’d step back quickly so that the door would fall open, and Cinnamon would fall forward onto the floor, crying.
            “Don’t lock me in, don’t lock me in!” she’d cry in heaving, sobbing breaths.

      “Baby! You’re such a baby! Stupid, stupid girl!” they’d chant and then run away before they could be caught and punished.

Cinnamon stepped away from the door, a little rattled. Then she stepped forward again and pushed the door again. Harder, sharper. The door wouldn’t move.

She’d come back tomorrow, that’s what. She’d just come back tomorrow and open that door. When it was light outside, when her head was on straight.

Cinnamon hadn’t realized that she was running until just then, when her head stopped spinning so quickly and her thoughts slowed. She was running with all her might back to the house, the candelabra still in her hand, but the candles all fallen out of it. Her feet barely touched the back steps as she fairly flew up them, where Tybalt sat, watching her with his big yellow eyes, almost a chastisement.

“I’m SORRY!” Cinnamon said, leaning over and massaging her ribs, “I don’t know what came over me.”

Tybalt licked his lips. ‘Me neither’, he thought.

Cinnamon found her phonograph and put on another record. She could be ready for bed before the songs were over. She could be asleep before the songs were over.

And she nearly was. She sat in her bed, hair brushed and nightgown on, her knees pulled up to her chin, and her blankets piled around her. But today she was going to do something a little different. Instead of hiding under her covers, she sat up in bed and faced the darkness. She sat and faced it for about three whole minutes, and then, tired but proud of herself, she ducked under the covers and went to sleep.

There was a knock on the door downstairs and Cinnamon went to answer it. She hurried down the stairs from her bedroom, tying her bathrobe around her. The knocking grew more persistent, and Cinnamon quickened her pace. The knocks still came at the door as she opened it. Cinnamon’s eyes grew wide as she looked around. There was no one there. She took a step out onto the porch.

“Hello?” she called, “Who’s there?”

There was no answer but whistling wind. From somewhere in the trees, as flash caught her eye.

Cinnamon was suddenly wide awake and sitting up in bed, sweating. That dream again! She shook her head and collapsed back into the comfort and warmth of her blankets, back to sleep within a few moments.

Tybalt was on his way back to bed about that same time. He had made his rounds and found the grounds quiet and still, and felt more comfortable taking his time prowling while he knew that his friend was in the house, watching his lady.

The figure from the night before was very interested in his lady, Tybalt knew that. He could tell from the way the figure watched her, even out of the house and down to the crypt, the shadowy being followed her, from the moment that the sunlight began to fade from the trees until it had grown strong again in the morning, and the figure would shrink back into the woodwork or the shadows or thin air- wherever it came from. Tybalt did not know yet, and sensed that his new friends liked to keep his secrets to himself.

Rassmussen Plantation part 5

“Hateful shadows.” Thought Cinnamon, who blew out her candle and covered her head with the musty blankets.

Cinnamon was asleep before long, and Tybalt, growing cramped, hopped out of the bed silently, and walked across the rug. He stopped for just a moment before he walked out the door, looking back briefly at his mistress, who was still sleeping peacefully, and with a ‘purr’ he set out into the dark house.

The moon was out by then, and moonbeams lit Tybalt’s way across the floor. 

What a strange place they had come to, Tybalt mused, wondering why they had left the last place. He sensed that they had come here to stay, that the old house now belonged to his lady. He’d protect her here as he had everywhere else they had gone, pacing the house and the gardens, the neighborhood as her silent watchman. Tybalt was a watcher, and a good one at that. He saw everything that went on. And heard them, too. A slight swirling of dust downstairs, what was that? He quietly took to the stairs, padding down them and across the foyer, where all was now quiet. A mouse scurried across his path, and in a moment he was on it, a quick killer. He decided to have is dinner right there, since he was feeling a bit hungry.  Mouse bones were crunchy, but manageable. He didn’t mind bones so much, but he was glad that mice did not have those pesky feathers to bother with.

Preoccupied with his dinner, Tybalt did not see the shadow pass behind him, then up the stairs and toward Old Rassmussen’s bedroom. What a quiet figure, to pass so quietly that even a cat did not hear.

The shadow slipped down the hall quickly, and stopped before the door of Old Rassmussen’s room. The figure laid a hand on the door to open it a little wider, a the door opened with the smallest protest.

Downstairs Tybalt’s ears jumped. The sound came from upstairs! A door! Perhaps Cinnamon was awake and frightened, or sleepwalking as she sometimes did. He had better get up there.

The room upstairs was totally dark. The shadow crept across the room and hovered a moment at the foot of the bed, then came around, closer to Cinnamon’s head. Gently and slowly it pulled back the covers from over her.

Tybalt entered at just that moment and saw the figure. His back arched and he hissed violently, spitting and swiping. Get away from her!

The figure took a step back, but made no other move. After a moment, Tybalt let his back down. The figure did not seem so menacing as it had at first. Tybalt hopped up on the bed, still protective of his lady. The figure seemed to smile, both frightening and reassuring at once. Tyablt seemed to sense that this shadow was like him; a watcher. A protector.

And suddenly as it had come, it was gone.

Tybalt decided not to leave Cinnamon for the rest of the night, and so curled himself up in her arms. Just before he fell asleep, he could not help but wonder; if the house came with it’s own protector, just what was it protecting them from?

The sunlight shining through the shutters woke Cinnamon the next morning. She shook her head and rolled over. Ouch. She smiled a little that her muscles were sore from the previous day’s work. Her stomach gave a little ache, a reminder that she was hungry.

“Always hungry,” she mused, “always needing to be fed. How much I could get done if I just didn’t have to eat.”

She felt acutely lonely as she got out of bed, even with Tybalt there, whom she gently scooted out of her way before exiting her bed. She spotted the grand vanity near the window that was hers now, and sat down at it. There were several silver handled hairbrushes in one of the drawers- some long handled, some short handled, some with boar bristles and others with thick wooden teeth.

She chose a long handles brush with thick, wooden teeth, and started brushing her curly red hair. She’d had a strange dream the night before. She’d dreamed that she’d been in her bed sleeping, when a voice called to her from outside. She’d dreamed that she had put on her dressing robe and gone down the stairs, but there had been no one at the door.

The dream had left her with an unsettled feeling.

Cinnamon re-adjusted herself on the bench, looked on the mirror, and, with the long, silver-handled brush, brushed the memories and shadows out of her head.

There was no one to see her today, so she decided to just let her hair fall loose and slightly curled over her shoulders. Then she put on her usual uniform of overalls and a boys cap, remembered to make her bed, and took the silver brushes downstairs to be polished.

So again began the scrubbing. First she shined the brushes, then she started on the pots and pans she hadn’t managed the day before. The water was a little too cool on the last round, so she went outside to get more wood for a bigger fire. There was always plenty of downed wood in the swamp, but often it was too damp for burning. She wandered deeper into the woods than she had the previous day, pulling dry twigs off the cypress trees instead of the ground, where they would be sure to be wet. The ground below her feet squelched unpleasantly as she stepped on it, in a few places her feet sank into the mud, once all the way up to her ankle.

“Ugh!” she protested, pulling her foot up out of the grime, and heading back to the mansion with her arms full of wood.

She thought she heard voices up ahead, and so slowed her pace, looking carefully to see who her guests might be. She saw a wagon pulled around the front, and so thought that perhaps her guests had gone around back, looking for her. She saw them before they saw her; a group of four women, two older than her by a good fifteen to twenty years, and the other two younger, their daughters most likely, milling about the back door.

“Hello?” she greeted them, coming out of the swamp, her arms still laden with her firewood. 

The women jumped around to look at her.

“You must be mad, girl!” one of the older woman said, the words tumbling out involuntarily.

“Blanche!” chastised the other older woman, “For shame!”

The first woman, Blanche, looked ashamed.

“I’m so sorry.” apologized Blanche, “You startled me, coming out of those woods the way you did. This place…”

“It’s my home now,” said Cinnamon, “And you are welcome here. Won’t you come in?”

Two of the women, Blanche and her daughter, looked very apprehensive, but the other two smiled politely and accepted. After the briefest hesitation, the other women did as well. Cinnamon escorted the women into the dining room off the kitchen, which was certainly not clean, but cleaner than most of the other rooms.

“I’d get you some tea or lemonade, but I haven’t any.” Cinnamon apologized, sitting down around the table with them.

“Of course you haven’t my dear!” exclaimed one woman. “Pray, let me introduce you to us. I am Cindy, and this is my daughter Alexandra. My sister-in-law is Blanche, and her daughter Sally. We are all Talbots- her husband is my husband’s brother.”

“How very nice to meet you. I am Cinnamon Rassmussen.”

“Cinnamon! What a peculiar name,” said Alexandra with a smile, “And we haven’t come for tea; we’ve come to offer our help. We heard from old Ben that there were lights in the windows here last night, and we’d heard that you were coming, so we thought it was you.”

“There’s lights in these windows often enough.” Cinnamon heard Sally murmur to her mother.

“What do you mean, Sally?” Cinnamon asked, beginning to dislike Sally.

“Oh! Oh, nothing. I don’t mean a thing.” Sally stammered.

There was a pregnant pause.

“Look,” Cinnamon sighed, “I know the stories, I know the legend. I know that everyone claims the place is cursed, so I’m not surprised to hear rumors about lights in the windows at night. I’m not afraid.”

Alexandra laughed out loud, “Oh! Oh, I like you. You’re a spunky one.”

Sally narrowed her eyes at them.

Cindy reached across the table, and put a hand on Cinnamon’s wrist.

“We want to help you out, that’s all. I’ve brought some things with me in the wagon, two chickens and a few eggs, and a few fixin’s for sandwiches, bread and ham and cheese.”

Cinnamon was taken aback at her new neighbor’s generosity.

“Why, thank you! Thank you very much, I…”

“Oh, none of that!” Cindy smiled, a cheery smile that reminded Cinnamon of sunshine, “Now, tell us where to begin.”

The work of five women was much more effective than the work of just one. The dust fairly flew, and the older women were especially helpful in deciding what rooms they would keep covered in sheets, and which would be used more often. Cinnamon didn’t like keeping any of the rooms covered in sheets, because she found it unwelcoming and spooky, but she knew she couldn’t keep the whole mansion up and running by herself.

“What on earth are you going to do with a place like this?” asked Alexandra later, as the two finished sweeping the dust off of the grand staircase. 

“I was thinking I could board travelers.” Cinnamon mused, “I’ve got enough rooms, anyway.”

“Well, we’ve got most the bedrooms in decent order. The sheets kept most everything just fine, no matter how much time went past.”

“Just how much time was that?” Cinnamon asked.

Alexandra gave her a look, “Well, no one can say for sure. Stories say that ever since that night the place has been still, and after Old Rassmussen buried that Alyce, he hid away and disappeared. My Gran says that horses would come and go from time to time, mostly at night, and lights could be seen in the windows at night, but it just got stranger and stranger until it got totally still, and someone got it into their head to go lookin’ after Old Rassmussen, and when they got here, it was just like this, and no one was here.”

The strangest part of cleaning the house was cleaning up the moldering banquet. The women were as shocked as Cinnamon to find it still there, after fifty years, still sitting on the table. Blanche and Sally flatly refused to go into the room, so it was left to Cindy, Alexandra and Cinnamon to clean it. There was very little rottenness in the food, it was so decomposed that it was a lot like dirt, platters and platters of fine china, filled with dirt. Cinnamon wanted it poured into the garden, thinking that it would make for fertile soil.

“What should I do with this?” asked Cindy, bringing Cinnamon the silver mask from the floor where she had dropped it.

Cinnamon looked at it a for a long minute, then proffered her hand.

“Give it here,” she smiled, “it’s mine now, too.”

At that moment Blanche stuck her head in the door.

“It’s getting late. We ought to get going.”

And so they did. Cindy left the food she had promised, and said that she would return soon. Cinnamon watched them drive away until there was nothing left to see, and she turned back into the house, to face another night with the darkness.

But it wasn’t night just yet. Cinnamon took the mask she still had in her hand with her up to her room. She sat back down in the stool before the mirror of the vanity. She turned her face this way and that, looking at it from all angles.

Could that face be pretty? Wasn’t she, after all, related to the famous belle who once wore the mask? Cinnamon lifted the mask up to her face, and tied the ribbons behind her head. She didn’t like the feeling it gave her, so she quickly pulled it off and set it back down.

Damned thing.