Rassmussen Plantation pt 12

Then came the sound of footsteps running out of the attic, and down the hallway, and then out of hearing. Crooked footsteps, as if the owner had a limp or club foot; one footfall was heavier than the other.
            Cinnamon stood frozen to her spot. Someone was in the house! Daylight hours and there was someone there with her, possibly watching and following her, possibly waiting for their chance to attack her and slit her throat, stab her to death!
            Cinnamon shook her head and forced herself to take several deep breaths. Whoever it was seemed more keen on pilfering than attacking. Had they intended to stab her to death, they probably would have done it already, having had ample chance, all day. Her heart was hammering and she fought the urge to sob uncontrollably. Why didn't she have her pistol with her!? She cursed herself silently and thought of where the pistol could be right at that moment. Under her pillow! In the master bedroom! But what should she do now? She could stay, quietly hidden in the maid’s quarters until she died of hunger or thirst or fear, she could run for the pistol….
Cinnamon decided to move her hiding place a few rooms away, and stay there for about a half hour longer. She slid underneath a desk she found there, and lay with her head on the dusty floor, trying to not let small puffs of dust rise with her heavy breathing. Her heart was pounding so hard she felt her blood throb thru each of her arteries to its beat. When a half hour was up, she snuck out of the room with extreme caution, Tybalt following suit, peeking around every corner before venturing there, and hoping that the unwelcome visitor had gone, and if they had not, she fervently hoped that they could not hear the hammering of one’s heart, or she was a dead girl for certain. At length she reached the master bedroom and she locked the door behind her with one swift motion before falling upon her bed and retrieving her pistol, and vowing to never make another move without it.
            Perhaps she would take Mr. Jeremy up on his offer to loan his wolf to her. Yes, as a matter of fact, she would definitely take that offer. She’d walk to the Tarleton Plantation right now, and not come back until she had the stalwart, moral support of a huge, black wolf at her side!
Just as Cinnamon laid her hand on the latch to make a run for the Tarleton Plantation, she heard a voice call her from outside on the lawn.
            “Miss Rassmussen! Are you at home, Miss Rassmussen?” called the wavering voice of an old man.
            “Old Ben!” Cinnamon called to him frantically, “Ben! Someone’s in the house with me!”
            She flew so quickly down the stairs and across the floor that her feet scarcely touched it.
 When she reached the door she seized it with both hands and threw it aside, banging it loudly behind her.
Old Ben was on the lawn, and on a short lease nest to him, was Ajax. Standing next to him was a black-haired girl who's face Cinnamon could not see. Cinnamon felt a wave of relief sweep thru her as her eyes rested on the Ben and Ajax, tho Ben’s eyes widened as he saw her, a surprised look, and he opened his mouth to speak but only managed a stutter.
“Wha--? Whaa-what’s …?” he began, but Cinnamon didn’t let him finish.
“Ben, there’s someone in the house!”
The dark girl turned her face to look at Ben, but Ben just scratched his head a moment, and looked at Cinnamon from the side, tilting his head just a bit.
“Miss Alyce. Miss Alyce lives in the house.” Ben said slowly, as if trying to recall something.
Cinnamon could have slapped him for that.
“She’s dead, old man! Dead and gone for fifty years now!”
“Yeah….” Ben agreed slowly, “She’s dead. Dead now fifty years, mebbe more.”
“Who is this, Ben?” Cinnamon asked, out of breath and turning to the girl who Old Ben had brought with him, but recognizing her as soon as the words tumbled out of her mouth.
“Alexandra Talbot, Cinnamon. Don't you remember me?" Alexandra’s eyes flashed from the mansion to Cinnamon and then to Old Ben, "My mother sent me."
"Of course, of course," Cinnamon gasped her apology, "Forgive me, I'm in a bit of a panic."
Ben, Ajax, Alexandra and Cinnamon searched the mansion, but didn’t find so much as a hair out of place. Feeling a bit foolish, Cinnamon, (with the help of Alexandra) set out a lunch for them all.
“Would be easy, miss, for thee to hear strange noises in a big house like this. Oftentimes, when the master is away, I thinks to myself that I hears footsteps and voices in the house, but aren’t none there but myself and my patience. Thee must not let thy imagination run away with thee.”
Cinnamon thought to herself that it wasn’t her imagination, it wasn’t drafts and the creaks of an old house that she had heard, it had been unmistakable footsteps, but didn’t argue the matter with the old man. She noticed for the first time the funny way the Old Ben spoke, with ‘thee’ and ‘thy’ where most people said ‘you’ and ‘your’.  Perhaps he was a Quaker. Her family would have been pleased with that; Cinnamon had been raised Quaker herself. It reminded her sharply of her old home; it had been a good childhood, but as she had gotten older she began to feel stifled, and her attempts to live her own life, which in her childhood were seen as feisty and even darling, were now seen as rebellion and damnable.
“I won’t have thee as my daughter! Perhaps thee should pay a visit to the bishop’s family in thy fancy dress! Thou are a stupid and rebellious daughter, and thee should be ashamed of thy reflection in the glass! Thee looks like a whore!” Cinnamon’s mother had shouted at her, when Cinnamon had seen them in town wearing a striped green and gray dress that showed her ankles and most of her shoulders.
Cinnamon’s father had said nothing, but just stood a ways off, and shook his head to himself, ashamed of Cinnamon, as he usually was.
“Miss? Miss? Cinnamon?!”
Cinnamon was suddenly jerked from her memories.
“Sorry,” Cinnamon apologized, “I was somewhere else.”
“I could see that.” Alexandra laughed a little under her breath, “Old Mr. Ben was just saying his goodbyes.”
****

Jeremy must have known that Cinnamon would not say no to Old Ben if he brought Ajax over, and truthfully, Cinnamon was grateful to have him around. Alexandra also proved to be a very good friend. Alexandra was quite set on staying with Cinnamon, and had brought a few bundles of clothes and other necessities. Cinnamon noticed that she always had a crucifix hanging around her neck, and Alexandra laughed, saying that her mother insisted. Alexandra did wonders in lifting Cinnamon’s spirits. The days were long, no matter how much endless scrubbing and washing was employed to pass the time, but with Alexandra’s help each day the dust seemed less manifold, the piles of dusty curtains and sheets less mountainous. As the days passed, Cinnamon had to admit that she liked the girl genuinely, her company and conversation were more than welcome, but those weren't Cinnamon’s sole motivations for keeping Alexandra close at hand. Cinnamon’s fears about being watched only increased with time, and she felt safer with Alexandra’s presence than she did solo.
After the episode of footsteps in the attic they had searched thoroughly, but Cinnamon had done her job too well, and there was not enough dust left about to record footprints, and  despite scouring the house, they had turned up empty-handed. There was no one there.  



Chapter Eleven
It was a pity that Tybalt couldn't talk; for he knew more than he was able to let on. He had seen Cinnamon’s company that day, seen where the old crone had come from, and seen where she retreated. He had seen what she had taken as well.
He also knew that Cinnamon was not sleeping well. Of course, Cinnamon knew that as well; it was a dream that was keeping her awake. Every night the dream was the same or very similar; sometimes more, sometimes less. There would be a knock at the door, and she would wrap her dressing robe around her and light her lamp to go and answer it. She'd walk quickly down the staircase and across the grand foyer and pull open the heavy wooden front door, and each night there would be no one standing there.  The wind would be blowing, tossing her hair gently over her shoulders, and whistling thru the dark trees beyond the yard. Then on the wind would come a voice; 'Cinnamon, Cinnamon!'. The flame on her lamp would suddenly extinguish, and she'd take a step back, startled.
"Cinnamon!" the voice would persist, "Cinnamon! Come out here to me! Cinnamon! Don't be afraid, pretty girl..."
Sometimes in her dream, Cinnamon would take a few steps out onto the porch, but most nights she'd retreat back into the safety of the mansion, slamming and bolting the door before running back up the stairs and back into her bed, where each night she would wake up, drenched in sweat.
*******

A few weeks went by with no more break-ins, and no more waking hour visitors. Cinnamon and Alexandra kept themselves busy with cleaning and re-cleaning, until the mansion had been scrubbed from the cellar to the rafters. The two girls decided to celebrate with a glass of sweet tea out on the porch.
Cinnamon had found some old rocking chairs out on the porch when she'd arrived, but most of them were in too bad of shape to repair, but was happy to find more stashed away in the attic. With Alexandra, she had oiled and whitewashed them, and they now had a happy collection of rockers out on the porch, to which they retired with their well-earned sweet tea.
"Having a graveyard out back is just plain creepy," commented Alexandra.
Cinnamon took a sip of her tea, patted Ajax's head as it rested lightly on her lap, and looked down the yard in the direction of the family graveyard. While they had cleaned up the mansion into almost-like-new condition, the outside of the place was quite another story. Vines and creepers ran all over the french railings and up the antebellum columns, some of the windows were still broken or boarded up. After the break-in scares, Cinnamon had made sure that all the ground-level windows had sturdy coverings, but many of the shutters on the upper floors hung loose.  The graveyard had a twisted, terrible fence around it, and the crypts and mausoleums within were inescapably disturbing. Most of the headstones were tilted or broken, or at very least overgrown. There was a funny, soft, smelly moss that carpeted the cemetery, and oozed brown water all over your shoes and made terrible squelching noises when stepped on. Cinnamon didn't like the idea of her ancestors rotting corpses oozing all over her boots.
"You could clean it up," suggested Cinnamon.
Alexandra wrinkled her nose. The thought wasn't one that inspired a lot of enthusiasm.
"Not on your life. I ain't going in there, not without you. Those are your dead folks, after all. But I suppose we'll have to. No one would stay here while it looks like that," Alexandra agreed reluctantly.
The two girls shared a look. Neither wanted to set foot in the creepy old cemetery, but both knew that the job had to be done.
"Well, let's finish our tea and pretend that we'll never have to do it, and when we're all done, then we'll go find the hoes and shovels and trowels and set to it, " Cinnamon sighed and sat back deeper into her rocker.
Ajax suddenly barked and lifted his head in the direction of the graveyard. Cinnamon stood instinctively  and her eyes flashed over the property, but whatever had alerted Ajax had escaped her. Ajax slipped off the porch and trotted toward the graveyard, and out of sight.
Cinnamon sat back into her rocker again, and started rocking. Tybalt emerged from the house and lept up onto Cinnamon's lap, giving Ajax a suspicious look as the wolf retreated. Tybalt felt much the way about Ajax as his mistress did about Jeremy. Cinnamon petted her cat reassuringly, and then sighed and leaned back into her rocking chair. She took another drink of iced tea, swirling it around in her mouth as she thought. Jeremy Tarleton- Something about him didn't sit right with her. Something in those too-handsome, too-smart, too-observant eyes of his.
The sun was still high in the sky when Cinnamon suggested that they had better start cleaning the cemetery. They both wanted to be long gone out it's gated before sunset sent it's long shadows over it. When the day started to cool, a strange mist would rise up from the ground, like water rising off a pot of water that's not quite boiling yet. Cinnamon couldn't help but think of it as a mist of dead bodies, almost like the literal ghosts of her ancestors, perhaps even Alyce herself.
Cinnamon shuddered. She was glad that Alyce was  dead and buried, if she could wield this kind of cold without even drawing breath.
Alexandra carried the shovels and Cinnamon carried the rakes. As Cinnamon set her hand on the gate to let the pair inside, she shared a look with Alexandra. Then, with a firm push, she opened the creaking lock and walked onto the squelching ground within. Ajax came back from wherever he had gotten to, and kept watch from atop a three-person companion crypt inscribed with the faded names of the Rassmussens it contained. After a moment, Tybalt hesitantly joined him, though he was careful to keep an untrusting  space between them. Alexandra and Cinnamon raked and pulled weeds, and discovered that the easiest way to get moss off of a tombstone was to simply scrape it off with a shovel. Several statues stood guard over graves; marble soldiers, lambs, lions, weepers and angels. One angel in particular stood out; the rain and elements had marked permanent tears rolling down her cheeks. When they came to the mausoleum which Cinnamon supposed held Alyce and Caspar, Cinnamon balked a little.
"Let's just let this one be for now." She suggested.
"Why?" asked Aexandra, wiping sweat from her glistening forehead, "It'd be better to get it over and done with."
Cinnamon stalled for a reason; she didn't want to confess that she was afraid to go inside, she was afraid to even go near it.
"Well.... well.... it's locked. Or, rather, the door is jammed, and it will take too much time to clean it out anyhow. I'd rather just bother with it another day," Cinnamon fibbed.
Alexandra looked it over, "Isn't this the one supposed to have Old Rassmussen inside? And Al-"
"Don't!" Cinnamon nearly shouted, surprising herself as the words rolled involuntarily over her tongue, "Don't say her name."
Alexandra looked shocked, and for a second it looked as if she was going to ask why, but bit the question back with, "Alright then, we'll just leave it be."
Cinnamon felt sorry for having snapped at Alexandra, and was about to say so when simultaneously Tybalt arched his back and spat, and Ajax jumped off the crypt and snarled.
Cinnamon and Alexandra whipped around to see what the animals had warned of, but saw nothing but the long branches of a weeping willow blowing lightly in the breeze.