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.