The Burning Read online

  He had been standing by her side at the edge of the pier.

  Where had he disappeared to?

  “Liza, have you seen Ham—” Angelica started.

  But her voice caught in her throat as she glanced back at the boat.

  And then she started to scream.

  Chapter 8

  “Did he fall?” Liza cried. “Did he fall?” She grabbed Angelica, repeating the question. “Did he fall?”

  “Hamilton! Hamilton!” Angelica screamed, raising her hands to her cheeks.

  She watched Hamilton disappear under the golden green water.

  And then she saw him rise up again as if floating on air.

  “Hamilton! Hamilton!”

  As Angelica gaped in horror, she saw that Hamilton was caught in the blades of the paddle wheel.

  “No! Oh, please—no!” she shrieked.

  His limp body rose up, then made a loud crunching sound as it was crushed between the wheel and the boat. It plunged back into the water, then was dragged up again, only to be crushed with another loud crunch.

  “Did he fall? Did he fall?” Liza repeated the question breathlessly, crazily, strands of her brown hair loose and blowing wildly about her head. Tears streamed down her face.

  Hamilton disappeared under the water. Then his lifeless body rose again. His arms waved helplessly. His head, the skull crushed beyond recognition, rolled back, then forward as the wheel carried him into the boat again.

  The water pouring off the big paddle wheel was pink, stained with Hamilton’s blood.

  “No! Oh, no. Please, no!” Angelica moaned, unable to take her eyes off the gruesome scene of horror.

  “Did he fall? Did he fall?” Liza continued her stunned refrain, her eyes rolling crazily in her head.

  Suddenly Angelica felt a firm arm around her waist.

  Uttering a soft cry of surprise, she turned to see Simon at her side. “Simon!” she cried in a high voice she didn’t recognize. “Simon, he—he—” She pointed to the boat.

  “Poor Angelica,” Simon said softly, holding her tightly. “Poor Angelica. You have suffered so much.”

  “Angelica, it is a pleasure to see you out of your mourning clothes,” Henry Pierce said, smiling beneath his dark mustache. He gently placed a hand on her shoulder in passing. “You are feeling better?”

  Angelica nodded but didn’t return his smile. She smoothed her shiny black hair. “Two months have passed, Father. I felt it proper to end my mourning for Hamilton.”

  Mr. Pierce made his way to the window and peered out into the evening darkness. “An unhappy time,” he muttered, more to himself than to her. He turned back to Angelica. “You are so pale, daughter.”

  “I am feeling better,” Angelica told him. “At least the dreadful fainting spells have ended.”

  “You have been considering my advice?” he asked, keeping his gruff voice soft. His eyes searched hers, as if seeking her true feelings. “I really do believe that traveling abroad is a good idea for you now.”

  Angelica sighed. “I haven’t had much time to think,” she replied with some sadness.

  “I hope you have not been too lonely since Liza returned home to Virginia?”

  “I needed this time by myself,” Angelica said, toying with her hair.

  “Simon Fear has visited you often,” her father remarked, frowning.

  “Simon has been a true comfort,” Angelica replied.

  Mr. Pierce nodded thoughtfully. “I hope you have not encouraged that strange young man in any way.” He took one more glance out the front window, then made his way back to where Angelica was sitting. “I am feeling quite tired this evening. I believe I shall retire.”

  “Good night, Father,” Angelica said. She rose and planted a kiss on his broad forehead.

  Startled by this unusual show of affection, Mr. Pierce turned bright scarlet. He smiled, wished her good night, and strode quickly from the room.

  Smiling to herself, Angelica moved to the sideboard against the wall and bent to pull two silver goblets from the cabinet. She busied herself there for a few moments, then returned to the couch.

  About half an hour later the butler entered the sitting room, carrying a small white card on a silver tray. “Mr. Fear wishes to see you, miss,” he said, presenting Simon’s card to her.

  Angelica took the card and glanced at it quickly, unable to suppress a smile. She nodded to the butler. “I will see him.”

  Simon entered, holding his hat in one hand, his dark hair slicked down, a look of concern on his face. But his expression softened to happiness when he saw that Angelica had traded her black mourning dress for a light-colored gown.

  Smiling at her, his dark eyes glowing in the soft light of the gas lamps, he crossed the room quickly, then bent and kissed her hand.

  She motioned for him to sit beside her. Raising his coattails, Simon lowered himself to the couch. “Angelica—” he started.

  But she raised a hand to silence him.

  Her emerald eyes burned into his. “Simon, I will marry you,” Angelica said.

  He stared at her blankly. He swallowed hard.

  “Simon, did you not hear me?” Angelica demanded. “I said that I will marry you!”

  “I—I am so—so—” he stammered.

  Angelica tossed back her head and laughed. “Why, Simon, I have never known you to be tongue-tied!”

  Simon blushed. “My dear Angelica, I am so overcome with happiness that I am speechless!” He took her hand in both of his. “I am thrilled, Angelica. I am the happiest man in all of New Orleans! I am bursting with happiness, I swear it!”

  Angelica jumped to her feet and walked quickly to the sideboard. “Simon, let us have a toast,” she said happily. “A toast to our marriage, to our happiness.”

  She filled the two silver goblets from a silver pitcher. Simon crossed the room and took one of the goblets from her hand. “To years and years of wedded happiness!” he proclaimed, beaming at her.

  The silver goblets clinked.

  They stood in front of the sideboard, their goblets raised, their faces glowing in the soft gaslight.

  Then, to Angelica’s surprise, Simon’s expression darkened. “I must tell you something now, dear Angelica,” he said, lowering his voice to a whisper.

  She gazed back at him expectantly, her eyes locked on his.

  “I love you so much,” Simon said. “So much … I would do anything for you.” He hesitated.

  “Yes, dear,” Angelica replied impatiently. “What is it?”

  “I was so determined to have you. Nothing … no one could stand in my way.” Simon continued, his eyes sparkling now.

  “Yes?”

  He took a deep breath, then let it out. “I love you so much—so much—that I murdered James Daumier and Hamilton Scott to win you!”

  Chapter 9

  Simon stared hard at Angelica, waiting for her reaction to his words.

  She gaped at him in stunned silence, the silver goblet trembling in her hand.

  “Angelica,” he said, his voice quivering with emotion, his eyes pleading with her not to be repulsed by his news, not to reject him because of what he had done. “Angelica, I murdered them for you. That is how powerful my love is. My love for you is so overwhelming that I was driven to kill for you! I beg you to understand!”

  Angelica didn’t reply. She raised the goblet to her mouth and took a sip. A drop of the dark wine trickled down her lip.

  Finally she spoke. “You—you killed them?”

  Simon nodded solemnly.

  “But how?” she demanded in a tiny voice.

  He hesitated. “I have powers,” he said simply. His hand tightened nervously around the goblet. Holding his breath, he stared at her, waiting for her to react.

  To his surprise, Angelica’s cat eyes narrowed and she uttered a scornful laugh.

  “Angelica—?” he cried.

  “You?” she cried. “You killed them?” She laughed again, laughed until tears rolled do
wn her cheeks. “You fool!” she declared, shaking her head. “It was not your powers that killed those two oafs! It was mine!”

  “What?” It was Simon’s turn to gape.

  “I killed them!” Angelica exclaimed through her tears of laughter. “I did it, not you! I have practiced the dark arts since I was a child. I knew I would never be allowed to marry you while James and Hamilton were around. And I knew that night at my party that you and I belonged together!”

  “But, Angelica—!”

  She raised a hand to silence him. “I could not marry James or Hamilton. They were both innocents, both lacking in imagination, both lacking the evil it takes to enjoy this world. So I cast spells. I murdered them both, Simon. I made James leap off our opera box railing. I made Hamilton fly off the pier into the paddle wheel. I murdered them for you—for us!”

  Simon swallowed hard in stunned silence. “I—I do not believe it!” he finally managed to choke out.

  “We will combine our powers,” Angelica declared, raising her goblet.

  “Yes, yes!” Simon agreed, quickly recovering from his shock. “Yes, Angelica, my dear. Together, nothing can stop us from getting what we want!”

  Angelica’s smile faded. “Only one thing can stop us, Simon, my love. One very powerful thing—my father. He will never approve of you. He wants to send me to Europe to get me away from you.”

  “Come! Let us see him at once!” Simon cried, his dark eyes sparkling with excitement. He grabbed Angelica’s hand and began to pull her.

  “Simon, stop! Where are you taking me? We cannot see Father yet. We have no plan. Simon, we need a strategy!”

  Ignoring her pleas, Simon pulled Angelica toward her father’s bedroom. They stopped short in the doorway when they saw Henry Pierce lying sprawled on his back on the bedroom carpet.

  His face was bright purple. His mouth was frozen open. His lifeless eyes gazed up at the ceiling like clouded glass marbles.

  “Simon … I—I—” Angelica gripped Simon’s sleevè. “Is he—dead?”

  “The doctor will believe it was his heart,” Simon said softly, unable to keep a smile from forming on his handsome face.

  “No!” Angelica cried, dropping to her knees beside her father’s dead body. “Father!” She raised her eyes slowly to Simon. “You did it? You did it for me?”

  “For us, my darling,” Simon replied. “I murdered your father before I came into the sitting room. I knew it was the only way we could be together.”

  “Oh, thank you!” Angelica cried, jumping up and throwing her arms around him. “We are wealthy now, Simon. We are wealthy—and free!”

  They hurried back to the sitting room and raised their silver goblets. “Let us drink!” Angelica urged. “To us!”

  She clinked her goblet against his. They both drank.

  “Delicious,” Simon declared. “So bitter and sweet at the same time.” He smiled at her knowingly. “It isn’t wine—is it?”

  “No,” Angelica replied, returning his grin. “It isn’t wine. It is blood.”

  Simon snickered and stared into the goblet. “You are full of surprises tonight, Angelica.”

  He wrapped an arm around her slender shoulders. Then they tilted the goblets to their lips and drank, allowing the rich, dark liquid to flow down their chins.

  Village of Shadyside 1900

  Nora Goode dropped the pen and tried to stretch the cramps from her aching fingers. Yawning, she stared at the narrow window on the bare gray wall.

  Morning sunlight cast a small yellow rectangle over the dark floorboards.

  Soon they will be coming, Nora thought, turning her eyes to the door.

  I must finish my story before they come. I must leave this written record for all to see.

  The evil that has followed the Fear family through the generations must be known. Otherwise it will never stop.

  She raised the crust of bread from the metal pan of food that had been left for her and dipped it into the cold, yellowish gravy. Stuffing it hungrily into her mouth, she glanced at the stack of pages on the small desk.

  So much more to write, she thought, picking up the pen and dipping it into the half-empty inkwell. The story of Simon Fear is so long and so frightening.

  Simon and his precious Angelica were married in 1846. Now I must move my story to nearly twenty years later.

  It is the year 1865. The War Between the States is drawing to a close.

  Simon and his bride have moved North to Shadyside Village, where they built an enormous mansion in the woods, away from prying eyes. They used Angelica’s money, of course.

  They lived there with their five children: two daughters, Julia, seventeen, and Hannah, sixteen, and three sons, Robert, fourteen, Brandon, eleven, and Joseph, the youngest at five.

  The family seemed happy and prosperous for a while. But with so much evil lurking within the walls of the Fear mansion, their happiness could not last.

  Nora scraped the last of the yellow gravy from the pan. Then she picked up her pen, bent over her pages and began writing feverishly….

  PART TWO Shadyside Village 1865

  Chapter 10

  “Whom will I be seated next to at the party tonight, Father?” Julia asked her father.

  Simon Fear glanced up from the documents he had been reading. “Hmmm. I believe I have you seated next to the mayor, Julia.”

  “Oh, no!” Julia leapt up from her chair by the fireplace and marched purposefully to her father, who sat behind his small writing desk. “Please, Father. Must I sit next to Mayor Bradford? You know the man is completely deaf! He cannot hear a word anyone says to him!”

  “Then that makes him the perfect dinner companion for you, my dear Julia,” Simon replied cruelly, frowning over his square spectacles. “You never utter a word at our dinner parties. You always sit in complete silence. So you and the mayor should be perfectly content!”

  “Father!” Julia uttered an exasperated cry.

  Simon studied his oldest daughter with some sadness. She had her mother’s beautiful black hair. But Julia’s face was plain, her jaw too wide, her nose too long, her tiny gray eyes set too close together.

  She was quiet, withdrawn, and shy, with little personality. A disappointment to Simon. He had hoped that moving to Shadyside Village, where the Fear family was the wealthiest and most prominent family, would help pull Julia from her shell. But she had become even more awkward and shy since the move.

  She is only happy at her potter’s wheel, Simon thought. Making vases and clay sculptures—that is the only time she smiles or shows any sign of enthusiasm.

  “Father, I think you are being unfair to my sister!” Hannah came bursting in from the back parlor. “Julia can have my seat next to Mr. Claybourne. I am sure that she and that charming old man will find plenty to chatter about, if that is what concerns you.”

  Simon set down his papers and climbed to his feet. His back ached as he stood. He realized he was getting older.

  He unfastened his stiff collar and pulled it off. “No, I am sorry. I want you to sit next to that windbag Claybourne,” he told Hannah. “I want you to charm him, Hannah, as only you can. I need Claybourne’s support for the library I wish to build.”

  With his eyes trained on Hannah, Simon didn’t see Julia’s hurt expression.

  “I am sure that Julia could handle Mr. Claybourne as well as I,” Hannah insisted, stepping behind her father’s desk to give him a playful hug.

  No, Julia could not, Simon thought. Hannah, he knew, was the charming sister. At sixteen she was tall, slender, and graceful, with wavy golden hair and lively brown eyes. She was as outgoing and lively as Julia was shy.

  Simon needed his younger daughter at his dinner parties. He relied on Hannah to charm and delight the guests and to keep the conversation lively.

  “The table is already set,” he told the girls. He removed Hannah’s arms from around his waist and straightened the papers on the little desk. “There will be no more discussion of this matte
r.”

  “Oh, Father!” Hannah complained with an exaggerated pout.

  “I do not understand why we have so many of these endless, boring dinner parties, anyway,” Julia said bitterly. “Can you not build all your libraries and museums and parks without so many dinner parties?”

  “We have discussed this before,” Simon replied impatiently. “I need the support of the important citizens of Shadyside. Why must I say all this again, Julia?”

  Julia took a deep breath, struggling to keep back her tears. “Well, if you do not believe I have the personality to grace your table, if you really believe the only place for me is to be seated in the corner next to a deaf man, then perhaps I shall stay in my room tonight!” she cried.

  Simon opened his mouth to reply, but a sound in the doorway interrupted him. He and the girls turned to see Mrs. MacKenzie, the housekeeper, enter with a short, red-haired girl in a maid’s uniform.

  “I am so sorry to be interrupting, sir,” Mrs. MacKenzie said, rolling her white apron in her hands. “But I am training Lucy here on the procedure for dusting. Lucy is the new maid. She just started this week. She is helping us tidy up and get ready for the dinner party tonight.”

  Lucy blushed and lowered her eyes. She was a tiny girl, Simon saw. No more than eighteen. She had orangey red hair pulled back into a tight bun, pale green eyes, and a tiny, sharp nose like an upturned V.

  “Go right ahead and dust, Mrs. MacKenzie,” Simon said, happy that his discussion with Julia had been interrupted. “I am going upstairs now to speak with my wife about tonight.”

  “Now, Lucy, you be careful of Miss Julia’s fine pottery here,” Simon heard the housekeeper instruct as he nodded goodbye to his daughters and made his way to the front stairs.

  “Father, I wasn’t finished!” Julia called shrilly.

  Simon ignored her and continued down the long marble-floored hallway. As he reached the stairway, his three sons, Robert, Brandon, and Joseph, came bounding down, dressed in their riding outfits.

  “And where might you be going, as if I could not guess?” Simon asked.