Darkest Journey Read online

  Charlie struggled to shake off the news she had just heard and tried to smile. “Grant, you look horrible,” she said. “And I mean that as a compliment. Jennie outdid herself.”

  It was true. Jennie McPherson, the makeup artist, had worked wonders on a shoestring budget.

  Despite the fact that they were all unpaid, every person involved in the film was glad to be there. In exchange for volunteering their efforts, they were all shareholders in the film. Of course, it needed to achieve a pretty broad distribution and earn a fair bit if they were to make any money, but they were all friends, along with a few friends of friends. Most of them had gone to school together and most of those had even graduated in the same class. Some had become friends through other acting jobs. Charlie had met Grant when they’d filmed a spot for a local car dealership. And he, like many of the other extras, had a day job. He was an accountant when he wasn’t acting. That had proved to be a huge asset, because he was also an associate executive producer and kept the books for the film, making sure they spent the budget wisely, especially the state’s money.

  Louisiana had made a concerted effort to woo the film industry, and Brad had received a state grant to help him cover expenses for props and equipment.

  Charlie and her friends weren’t tabloid names—yet. But most of them were making a decent living at their craft, just like thousands of other actors who weren’t yet household names and might never be. This film was her first chance at a lead role, and since she hailed from St. Francisville herself, she was also in love with the historical incident on which Brad’s script was based.

  It had occurred one day in the middle of the Siege of Port Hudson during the Civil War. Port Hudson had been incredibly important to both sides, since it was at the junction of the Red and Mississippi Rivers. Admiral Farragut from the North wanted it taken, so the US Navy was determined to take it.

  In that effort, they shelled Grace Episcopal Church.

  But one day, suddenly the shelling went silent. And a small boat, bearing US Navy men and a white flag of truce, made its way to the shoreline below the bluffs.

  The commander of the Albatross, one of the ships involved in the shelling, had died by his own hand. Since he’d exhibited no signs of depression in a loving letter written to his wife just days before, it was later assumed that he’d grown despairing during a fit of delirium, perhaps due to yellow fever. A good commander and a Mason and a kind man full of concern for the wounded of both sides, he had been well loved.

  Two of his officers and best friends aboard ship hadn’t wanted to consign his body to the waters of the Mississippi, so they’d gone ashore to find out if there might be brother Masons anywhere near, and if there was any way that Commander John E. Hart could be afforded a proper service and burial. One of the largest Masonic lodges in Louisiana—Feliciana Lodge #31 F&AM—was nearby. The White brothers, who lived in the area and were touched by the plea of Hart’s friends, set out to see what they could arrange.

  The Grand Master of the lodge was serving in the Confederate Army. But the Senior Warden, William W. Leake, also with the Confederate Army, had his “headquarters in the saddle” and was in the area. The White brothers found him and explained the situation, and Leake said he couldn’t imagine any military man—not to mention a brother Mason—not having a proper burial.

  Word was sent back to the Albatross, and the ship’s surgeon and a few fellow officers made their way, carrying the body in the June heat, swearing and determined, up the bluffs to the church. They were met by the White brothers, W. W. Leake, a number of other Masons, the Reverend Lewis and a company of Confederate States Marines.

  For a few precious moments in time, on June 12, 1863, there was peace. Commander John E. Hart was buried with full military and Masonic honors in the Grace Church graveyard.

  Of course, the war went on afterward. Vicksburg fell on July 4, Gettysburg turned the tide in the East on July 3, and Port Hudson was surrendered on the 9th, following the longest siege of the war. There were five thousand Union casualties and more than seven thousand Confederates. Once Vicksburg had fallen, General Gardner felt that to continue to hold out would simply cause more useless bloodshed and death. He was right, but he was overruled by his superiors. From then on it was more blood and the tragic loss of life for both sides until the day at Appomattox Courthouse almost two years later when, for all intents and purposes, the country was reunited.

  William Leake went on to become Grand Master of the Feliciana Lodge, and for forty-nine years, he tended to Hart’s grave. When Leake died, he was buried next to Hart, and the two were now honored every year with a reenactment ceremony called The Day the War Stopped.

  The whole story was covered in Brad’s movie, which made it very special to Charlie. Her mother’s great-great-grandfather had been one of the Confederate States Marines who had attended the funeral services for Commander Hart. She’d always loved the story, because it was about the goodness that could be found in people even amid the tragedy of war.

  But Brad’s movie wasn’t historical; it was a suspense movie about a piece of land hallowed by the blood of the soldiers who’d died there and was now threatened by drilling, people trying to save it and other people sabotaging efforts at negotiation, while a few evildoers were ready to kill to have things their way. It was timely, and those on both sides were drawn as complex characters. At the end, the would-be killers were stopped by the very ghosts who made the land so special. Or, possibly, by what they saw in their own imaginations. The truth was, the ending of his movie was left to the eye—and the imagination—of the viewer.

  As Charlie and the decaying soldiers, along with Harry Grayson and Blane Pica—who played the scuzzy oil baron and sleazy senator trying to kill Charlie—and assorted crew members got a look at the footage, she had to agree with Brad. It was great. Also really creepy. If the rest of the footage was as good, they would have a surefire hit.

  “Thank you, and that’s a wrap for the day,” Brad said, smiling. “You’re free—until your 7:00 a.m. call if you’re in the fight scene. Check your schedules and have a good night.”

  Grant laughed and called out, “Brad, check your schedule. It’s a 7:00 p.m. call tomorrow.”

  Brad winced. “Sorry. Go and enjoy your night.”

  Charlie smiled at Grant. She wasn’t on call at all for the next several days. Due to her commitment to a web series she was also filming, she had returned to Francisville only five days earlier, and she’d been on call pretty much nonstop since. Now she had only a few scenes to go.

  “Sounds good to me,” Jennie McPherson said, as she glanced over at George Gonzales—another Tulane classmate—who was doing double duty in set design and as a prop master. The extras had been returning their hats, swords, guns, belts, buckles and the rest of their accessories—everything but the period uniforms they were still wearing—and George was frowning.

  “Missing a belt buckle, a canteen and a knife,” George said.

  “Come on, let’s go. Showers for one and all,” Jimmy said, wrinkling his nose as he got a whiff of himself.

  “I’m going to stay and help George and the set guys retrieve whatever fell in the fields,” Charlie told him. “We can’t afford to lose any of our props.” She loved George. He was one of the hardest-working and funniest friends she had, claiming descent from both slaves and also from their Confederate masters. He loved to chime in on their historical discussions, especially since his mother—who, confusing things even more, was Israeli—had been born in New York City. He considered himself a Confederate/Yankee/African American, and liked to say that gave him a unique perspective.

  “Yeah, don’t want to leave George in the lurch,” Jimmy said. “I guess I can stay, too.”

  “You have a call tomorrow night. I don’t. Go have fun, then get some sleep,” Charlie said.

  “Oh, man, thanks, Charlene! There
is so much we have to be so careful with! Money, you know,” Jennie said. She was a petite blonde, and with her hair in a ponytail, as it was now, she looked to be about fifteen, but she’d actually turned thirty on her last birthday. Brad had met Jennie working on a project in New Orleans. She liked to lord it over George, who was her junior by a year. “We have to be so careful about costs.”

  “I’ll stay and help, too,” Grant offered.

  “No, you do the books, you do the budgeting, you write the checks—and you’re an extra every time Brad needs one. I’ve got this,” Charlie said. “Go.”

  Jimmy and Grant left, looking more like ghostly apparitions than ever as they headed toward their cars. Brad didn’t notice; he was studying shots with Mike, his brother and main cameraman.

  “I’m off to look for your missing props,” Charlie said. “Can Barry light up the field for me?” Barry Seymour was in charge of lighting. He was also an electrician, which made him perfect for the job, because he could fix any problems at minimal cost. He came from Baton Rouge, and like Grant, he was in his early forties. He could not only take the time to work on the film but he could invest in it, as well, because he’d once worked as an electrician on one of the big oil rigs in the Gulf. He’d taken his pay and invested heavily in the oil company, and it had paid off.

  “Barry! Light the field!” Jennie yelled.

  Charlie cringed. She could have yelled herself.

  “I can help, too,” Luke Mayfield, their sound engineer and another friend, just a few classes ahead of Charlie and Brad at Tulane, walked over and said to Charlie.

  “Great,” she said.

  She hurried toward the field where they’d been filming, followed quickly by Luke and George, and then Barry, Mike and Brad.

  Even the director worked at keeping costs down.

  As she walked, head down, eyes searching the ground, she was glad to be alone with her thoughts. Jimmy telling her about the murdered man had been unnerving. Especially here. She couldn’t help but remember the past. And now something bad had happened again.

  Yes, something bad happened somewhere every day, but that was no consolation.

  She paused for a minute and looked up at the church.

  The area held strange memories for her—some pleasantly nostalgic, some not so great. Now, though, the church and the surrounding landscape had an eerie beauty in the moonlight. The church wasn’t immense or grand, like a cathedral, but it stood proud on its bluff overlooking the Mississippi, and there was even something unexpectedly poignant about it. The cemetery around the church was filled with graves of all kinds, in-ground, “box” graves—literally stone or marble in the shape of boxes—and family mausoleums. Cherubs and angels stood guard everywhere. Grace Episcopal Church still served the people of the parish, and the building and graveyard were well kept without looking manicured.

  The mist created by their fog machines was dispersing, but slowly, so a low fog still hovered over the ground, making her search difficult and rendering the scene deceptively surreal.

  For a moment Charlie found herself thinking that she could see a distant past when war had raged—and a temporary peace had been found. She could almost see those soldiers, some who had lived and some who had died, making their way through the mist and the moss-draped oaks.

  She remembered being young and playing in the graveyard when she shouldn’t have. She’d imagined seeing things then, too....

  And then there had been that night in high school when she’d been pledging the Cherubs and ended up tied to a headstone, even though they all knew there was a killer at work not far away.

  A serial killer who targeted young women.

  Ethan had found and freed her. And she knew, though she hadn’t said anything to Jimmy, that she was especially upset because...

  Because she’d become entangled in that last murder when she’d found a dead girl’s bracelet.

  Charlie gave herself a serious shake. She’d been living in New Orleans since she’d graduated from college; that’s where the work was. She’d done some national commercials and even a few guest spots on network shows. But...

  This was home. She loved it here. And she would be damned if she was going to be afraid out here now. She wasn’t tied up; she wasn’t a kid. She was an adult—ten years older, and making a good living in her chosen field.

  Still, she couldn’t help but remember the past.

  She’d looked up information on the men who had died in and around the area, especially those who had been buried here. She was pretty certain she’d found the cavalryman whose ghost she’d seen all those years ago; his name was Anson McKee. Anson had been a married man with one son, and he’d been a graduate of West Point. The week before his death he’d written the most beautiful letter to his wife, a letter now preserved in a museum in New Orleans. He’d written of his love for her, his fear not of death, but of leaving her.

  Know that I will whisper your sweet name with my last breath. Know that whenever Almighty God may choose to take me home, my time on this earth was the sweetest and most precious any man could ask for. I was blessed to know you, to live with you, to hold you and call you wife.

  She sometimes wished that she could see him again and tell him that she’d been blessed because of him.

  Anson was buried in hallowed ground. She had visited his grave and brought flowers to it.

  And while the cemetery could feel very creepy at night, there was no reason for her to be afraid—not now. Any ghosts there had been good people. Good people did not return to do mischief.

  Her own mother had been interred in the family mausoleum at Grace Church. It was a handsome and historic old family tomb that she and her father kept in immaculate shape.

  She bit her lower lip. The dull throb of that loss always lived with her, just below the surface. But she and her dad both remembered the good and the love, clinging to the beauty of their memories.

  Still, she had too many recollections associated with the graveyard, and that one memory was very scary. If it hadn’t been for Ethan, things might have been much, much worse.

  Someone surely would have come back for her—eventually.

  But would they have come in time?

  The moon shifted. She was close enough to the edge of the bluff that she could see the Journey, the meticulously restored paddle wheeler on which her father worked and lived for large parts of every week, as she made her way up the Mississippi.

  The Journey had been in port earlier and would be there early tomorrow morning, as well. She’d gotten to see her dad when he’d had a few minutes of free time after taking his tour group through the Myrtles Plantation and on to see Rosedown Plantation. She would have a few minutes with him again in the morning before the Journey headed to New Orleans.

  She was glad of the chance. She was an only child, and her mom was gone, but she had her father, and while these days he was almost always aboard the Journey, its home port was New Orleans, so she was able to see him often when she was home.

  “Charlie.”

  She turned when she heard her name, trying to figure out who’d called her. The others were busy searching farther away, and no one seemed to even be aware of her.

  She caught her breath. The mist from the foggers should have dissipated by now, but it seemed that a real one was rising.

  “Charlie.”

  There it was. Someone had spoken her name again, and her coworkers were still involved in their own searches.

  She could have sworn she saw shapes moving in the mist, just as she had seen ghosts, long ago as a terrified teenager tied to a tombstone before being rescued by a young man who also saw the ghosts in the moonlight but was not afraid.

  The ghosts hadn’t been out to hurt her. Ironically, Brad’s movie had hit on the truth—or her truth, at least. She and Ethan had neve
r spoken about it, but she knew that the ghost of the cavalry officer had led him to her that night. He’d seen her distress and found help. She’d wondered time and time again if there was a way to help that soldier. Did he want to pass on? Or did he stay to help others?

  Or did he stay because he wasn’t alone? There had been others with him, just none she had seen as clearly as she had seen him.

  A long time ago now.

  She reminded herself that she was supposed to be working. She was the lead actress and a shareholder. And given their budget, she was also looking for costly props.

  She straightened and gave herself another mental shake. She was letting the shadows and the moonlight and history infiltrate her mind and strip away all the logic and common sense she had acquired as an adult.

  But she could never be here without first remembering her mother, and then that time, before she’d lost her mom, when she’d been tied to that tombstone.

  When she’d heard the sobbing. When Ethan had come to save her...

  When she’d found the bracelet that had belonged to a murdered girl...

  “Hey!” she called, wanting to hear her own voice. “What are we looking for again? A buckle, a knife and a canteen?”

  She didn’t need to be afraid. Jennie, George, Mike and Brad were within easy shouting distance. She could see them moving across the ground where the “ghosts” had so recently walked.

  “Yeah,” George called back. His voice came from much farther away than the sound of her name had.

  “Found the belt buckle,” Mike announced.

  “Got the canteen,” George said a moment later.

  Charlie walked closer to the outskirts of the church, moving slowly and carefully over the ground, nearing the old outer, unhallowed, graveyard.

  “I see something!” she cried, noticing a gleam in the moonlight.