J. Horn - The Line

I put on my best smile to welcome the guys as they spilled out of the bar and back onto the street. “Room for one more?” a newcomer asked. It was Tucker Perry, a middle-aged lawyer and real-estate developer. His blond curls were carefully coiffed to appear carelessly tousled, and they framed soulless pale blue eyes. He glowed with a golfer’s tan and the easy insincerity of a man who has always believed he’s at the top of the food chain. “I’ve been wanting to come with you for quite a while, and there’s no time like the present.”

“We’re already under way, maybe some other time,” I said, using my best poker face to hide my distaste for the man.

“Oh come on now, Mercy.” He smiled, narrowing his eyes in a way I am sure he thought was seductive. “Let me tag along, I promise I won’t be any trouble.” The guys shifted a little, waiting for a cue from me. I held my ground, and Tucker took it as a challenge. “Has she told you any of the spooky stuff yet?” he questioned the others. “I’m not talking the ghost stuff. You know our girl Mercy here is a witch, right? She and her whole family.”

Everyone knew the Taylors, and ever since our arrival, Savannah’s tribal knowledge has allowed that we were witches, even though most of the tribe didn’t really understand what the word “witch” meant. My family had always had enough money to ensure a welcome into polite society, but in most situations, that welcome never extended beyond the most superficial of levels. Truth was, we’d always been held at a respectful arm’s length, sensed to be useful but dangerous—kind of like a nuclear power plant. People liked to benefit from our presence, but they didn’t want to think about us too often or in too much detail.

But while my family tree was electric with power, I had none of it. As fate would have it, I was the first total dud in a line of witches that could be traced back at least six hundred years. Although no one other than my Aunt Iris’s husband would ever say so openly, my family viewed my lack of power as an unfortunate if not entirely debilitating birth defect. Well, maybe that’s too strong. Maybe they saw it as being on par with my ginger coloring—not ideal, but nothing to be ashamed of.

“Mr. Perry, if I had any magic powers, I assure you that I would use them to make you disappear,” I said, provoking a laugh from my group.

Perry didn’t like being refused, and he liked being laughed at even less. “No seriously, Mercy. Tell them,” he said. Then, turning toward the men, “Trust me, her aunt Ellen and I have shared some very unusual pillow talk.”

“I think we should continue on with our tour,” I said, ignoring Tucker’s comment. “Maybe another time, Mr. Perry.”

“Oh, I do hope so, Miss Taylor,” he said, reaching out to touch me. I stepped back quickly, and my guys stepped in between us, forming a protective wall. Over their shoulders I could see Perry lifting his hands in surrender, an oily smile on his face. He turned and started walking south on River Street, but then stopped and called back to me.

“Mercy, remind Ellen that I will be picking her up tonight for Tillandsia. As soon as you and Maisie turn twenty-one, you’ll both be very welcome. I’d love to be your sponsor. After all, it was your mama who brought me into the fold.” Tucker’s mention of my mother made my stomach turn. It was bad enough to know my aunt was involved with him. I certainly didn’t want to consider the possibility that my mother had once had a connection to him. The thought was enough to make me lose my game face, and my guys noticed it.

“Are you okay?” the tall one asked. He probably had a daughter my age, I realized. “Do we need to worry about him for you?”

“Why no, not at all,” I said and managed a not-too-fake sounding laugh. I was getting too good at this lying game. “You just witnessed a bit of our local color.”

“What was this Tillandsia thing he was talking about?” the round one asked.

The Tillandsia Club was a dinosaur, a throwback to the days when Savannah society was still comprised of iron magnates and wannabe railroad barons. Its ranks have included senators, congressmen, governors, bankers, judges, and other such white collar thieves. Social democratization had passed Tillandsia by entirely. Even today, the only way in was to be sponsored by a member in good standing. The members of the club wanted to be able to get their good times on without word of their behavior getting out and tarnishing their public image. Tillandsia was one of the few groups to which my family’s wealth had opened the door, and since Ellen could drink a man twice her size under the table, it seemed like a natural fit for her.

“Tillandsia is the genus of Spanish moss,” I said, gesturing widely at a cluster of trees that were visible from where we stood on River Street. “It’s also the name of my aunt’s gardening club.” I lied about the club if not the classification of the plant, knowing that it would help move the guys off the subject. “Onward and upward, gentlemen!”

Our route would take us over some large cobblestones and up some uneven steps, and I knew it would be best to get the guys past these hurdles before their drinks kicked in. I hustled them over to the trees between the Old Savannah Cotton Exchange and Bay Street, releasing any thoughts of Tucker Perry as I breathed in the dappled golden light, letting Savannah possess me. One of the ghost tours passed by, and the guide raised his hand to me in greeting as he carried on talking about Moon River Brewing and the ghosts that bump around on the building’s upper floors. The only hauntings I ever mentioned on my tour were the ones I knew to be false, particularly if they could be twisted into stories that were funnier than they were creepy. After all, I advertised as the Liar’s Tour.

Truth was, there was magic in Savannah, magic that was beyond that of the Taylors. Sometimes I wondered if my family had come here in an attempt to tame this raw energy or maybe even harness it and make it their own. Savannah had the power to hold people long after their final sell-by date had been carved into marble. You didn’t need to be a witch, or even a psychic, to see spirits in Savannah—you just had to pay attention.

I let the tour proceed on automatic. The guys were happy just to be outside in the warm evening air, momentarily free from the pressures of work and family, with a more than adequate, but still legal, blood alcohol content. My stories flowed without interruption until Drayton Street, when one of the guys asked, “So this cemetery we’re going to, is it the one from that Garden at Midnight movie?”

“No, that is Bonaventure,” I said, moving swiftly past the thought that my own mama was buried in Bonaventure. Death and life, death in life. The two weren’t just joined at the hip in Savannah, they were downright symbiotic. Witches, even powerful ones like my mama had been, aren’t immortal. Their lives are just as fragile as anyone else’s. “We are going to visit Colonial. Bonaventure is still an active cemetery,” I said. “There haven’t been any burials in Colonial since the 1850s. Everyone who loved anyone who’s buried there has long since passed themselves.”

I forced a smile onto my face and began my tale about Rene Rondolier, arriving beneath the Daughters of the American Revolution eagle just as I got to part about the illicit love affair between the giant and the Savannah belle. Sunset was still over an hour away, but the keepers of Colonial kept to a fixed calendar regardless of the sun’s opinion. “The gates are going to be locked soon, so let’s duck in real fast and head toward the back wall,” I said and began to guide them toward the tombstone-lined wall. I was still talking when I realized that the guys had fallen back; their attention had shifted from me to some fracas that was going on near the center of the cemetery.