“I feel like I’m losing my mind,” Maggie said as she snuggled into his arms.
“Maggie, you need to stop looking for ghosts around every corner,” Aaron said as he stroked her back in a soothing rhythm. “I know how you feel. When I first got here I kept waiting for the catch, for the cost of this new life I was being given. But we’ve been here all summer and nothing bad has happened.
“I know this whole scenario is bizarre, but that doesn’t mean that it has to be bad. So some crazy old woman brought us both to this town. Maybe she had her own reasons, maybe it was just fate. Frankly it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that we’re here, that we met. And as soon as the harvest is over we can leave.”
Maggie’s head snapped up and she looked at Aaron questioningly. “Leave?” she asked with a catch in her throat.
“Sure. If that’s what you want. I’ve got work in Savannah, and you mentioned that you wanted to apply to school there. We don’t have to stay here. We can leave this place behind us and it’ll just be a story of the weird way we met,” Aaron assured her, and for the first time that day Maggie was able to take a deep breath. Maybe he was right, maybe the why didn’t matter. Maybe the mystery of Ms. Devereaux didn’t really matter either. What mattered was that Aaron wanted her to come to Savannah with him, that they had a future beyond Devereaux Manor.
“So what’d you make me for dinner?” Maggie asked smiling.
22
The following morning Maggie woke with a new sense of clarity. Apparently, while sleeping, her mind had worked through all the questions that had overwhelmed her the day before.
The journal she’d found was a record of all the babies that Doc Robbins had delivered. The listings were the names of the parents, the child, and the date of birth.
Agnes Devereaux’s name was listed next to a date that came approximately nine months from the date of the spring cotillion, the night that she’d been found making love to the farm boy. There were several reasons that her name could have been listed alone, but one thing was certain. Agnes Devereaux had given birth to a child, and the only evidence, the journal, was now missing.
Someone had taken that journal from Maggie’s room, probably the same person who had taken the photograph, perhaps the same person who’d left a light on in the East wing last night.
Maggie woke with the determination to lay this mystery to rest. She was ready to leave, to go to Savannah with Aaron and begin a new life there. But first she needed to know why Agnes Devereaux had chosen them, why she’d brought them here, and Maggie believed the answers lay in the East wing.
Aaron had already gone into the orchards to work with the harvesting crew. Maggie was alone in the house and had the whole day ahead of her. She quickly dressed and left her room headed for the stairs, but when she reached the landing she paused. Rather than head down to the kitchen to start her coffee she found herself staring down the dark halls of the East wing.
She’d become quite comfortable in this big house over the last two months. She’d already explored every room on the first floor and as she found herself taking steps toward the forbidden East wing she tried to convince herself that this was no different, just a few more rooms. That didn’t keep her pulse from racing as she stepped into the shadowy hallway.
The East hall was so dark it seemed to extend infinitely. She found a switch on the wall and flipped it. Several wall sconces flickered to life. A few of them remained dark and one continued to flicker, creating a dim eerie lighting in the hallway.
Maggie pushed ahead, refusing to let her fear and anxieties make her turn back. She walked farther into the hall, checking the handles on the doors as she passed. They were all locked.
The farther she got down the hall the hotter it became. The air was humid and smelled of dust and disuse. This was obviously an unused wing of the big house. Some of the lights were burnt out, the air vents closed off, and the doors of the rooms locked. Maggie found it odd that while the rest of the house was kept immaculate even in the owner’s absence that this wing would be allowed to fall into such decay.
As she neared the end of the hallway Maggie decided that it had probably been exhaustion causing her mind to play tricks on her. There had been no light in this hallway. Then she noticed that one of the last doors in the hallway was slightly ajar. She approached the door slowly reaching out with a trembling hand and pushing it open, dim lighting spilled into the hallway.