January, 1865.
She made a face of disgust. It shouldn't have smelled, but it did. The " it" in প্রশ্ন was a former Solider...Cavalry..or maybe a foot soldier? It was hard to tell WHAT rank he was in the early morning light.
She dragged the body to a safer location: a deeper room in the mansion, to look through its pockets. Just what...... the Late Henry Hampton of the 2nd Regiment Cavalry of Pennsylvania was doing all the way in Atlanta was anybody's guess, but দ্বারা the looks of things, there had been some sort of fight.
The old Sullivan Plantation was burned down during Sherman's March last year, but some of the rooms were, for the most part, intact. She could see boot scuff marks, most likely Mr. Hampton's, and...some sort of powder. Whatever it was, it did NOT come from a gun. Yes..there appeared to be a sort of struggle, and Hampton was hit over the head with....aha! THIS piece of bannister! Most unladylike to be groping around for a murder weapon, but what did that matter anymore?
She was Henrietta "Hettie" Elsing, aged 28, after all. This WAS what she did best. She had been a well-to-do girl just four years ago, but, like most people, she had to scrape together a living, even if it meant looting like a no- account scallywag.
Lord, if her parents could see her now! She had been brought up better than this... MUCH better, but desperate times call for desperate measures, she thought as she gave Hampton a makeshift burial. ব্যক্ত some prayers, like she did when she buried her pa and made sure as hell not to bury the haversack and coat. She needed that coat!
Once, before the war, she had so many fine clothes! So many fine gowns, and coats and hats. Jewelry, too. It's been a hard few years, and the Plantation was luckier than others. It was saved, but she হারিয়ে গেছে many of her fine things, and she was wearing the same ক্র্যানবেরি wool গাউন, gown with tattered Chantilly জরি for a while now, washing it whenever it got soiled.
Her fiance had been captured in Spotsylvania and died in a prison, at least according to rumor. She had three loyal house servants, her sister, Alice, and her beau, Charles. They looted as much as they could, as often as they could, but, still, they were better off than most folks in the county.
A blast of icy January wind jarred Hettie out of her thoughts. She went looking through the pockets of the কোট before putting it on. All she found was the wallet, which contained the identification দ্বারা which she learned the man's name. The কোট was a bit big for her.
The bag was emptied rather unceremoniously, and hastily, unlike the careful manner to which she was accustomed to snooping through peoples belongings, but there was not a soul to be seen, so what did she care if she spooked some mice with the noise?
In the bag, she found a pistol and a full case of ammunition (Good. she'd need that.) Some clothes, and a স্বর্ণ watch. She couldn't believe her luck with the watch! It was heavy, and was engraved with the dead man's initials, and it had an ornate watch fob.
স্বর্ণ was gold, even if it WAS Yankee gold. She decided to keep the watch fob ( which was coated in that strange yellow powder as on the rest of the floor) as a pendant. It was a new, Union 20 dollar স্বর্ণ piece, worth nothing now that it was set into a bezel designed to look like braided rope.
She made her way back to the Plantation (named "Maycross") and was greeted দ্বারা Charles waiting for her দ্বারা the gate, lantern aloft, bundled up in coats and scarves.
" Land sakes, Hettie! I thought দ্বারা the time আপনি got back it'd be 1965!" he ব্যক্ত with a laugh, and an amused grin.
"I told আপনি NOT to call me that! Only my sister gets to call me ' Hettie"!" she snapped at her soon-to-be- brother-in-law. She couldn't stand him on most days. Usually, he was worse.
"I see আপনি got a decent haul." he said, nodding his head at the direction of the কোট and haversack.
" That I did." she said, her voice icy as the breeze.
The two walked into the shabby foyer of Maycross, and Charles signaled for Alice to come over to the dining hall, across from the লাইব্রেরি where she was reading.
" Did আপনি find anything?":she asked eagerly. as she glided over in her gray and পরাকাষ্ঠা plaid hoop স্কার্ট with the black frilled hem and the zig -zagged black frills towards the center. Her ব্লাউজ was white cotton with faded black velvet trim and the Garibaldi sleeves with the wide ends. Both were 4 years out of তারিখ and were courtesy of a previously unexplored attic in the neighboring Plantation. Alice still managed to glide... not walk.. glide across the floor. She always WAS the আরো graceful of the two.
Though they had acquired some valuables since they had to start looting, they were hurting for money, and Hettie actually LIKED looting, but was afraid to tell anyone.
Careful not to set off the loaded gun, she gingerly removed it from the haversack, where it was promptly placed on the fireplace mantle. She displayed the wallet, watch ( minus the fob, which she was wearing on a faded black cord on her neck) and the change of clothes to her sister and her obnoxious fiance.
Charles went to his nearly empty bedroom to change into the Union Soldiers old boots, শার্ট and pants. It was the first NEW set of clothes he had in a while since the damned blockade prevented them from sneaking any across.
Alice was admiring the watch fob on her sisters neck, graciously saying it brought out her eyes- which it did. It was about time she had some jewelry besides the tacky ear bobs she got from her mother.
Charles came swaggering out like he was dressed in a silk evening কোট instead of a heavily mended wool vest. He added the watch to his outfit.
"Dear, আপনি look wonderful!" ব্যক্ত Alice as she kissed her beau on both sides of his face.
What an idiot, Hettie thought. What does she SEE in that cad? He hasn't any আরো money than the rest of us!
Her maid, Sarah ( a negro girl of 18) announced ডিনার was ready- if আপনি could call it that. "Dinner" was the same God-awful beetroot stew. The Yankees left a cow and about 50 অথবা so chickens, which were barely making it through the winter, but they left the vegetable and cotton fields untouched, so they had an abundance of beets.
Then went about ladling the slop into their bowls, and sat down on the once-fine mahogany chairs, now scuffed with use. ডিনার was eaten in silence, and unlike most Plantation owners, Hettie and her sister allowed Sarah, their butler; Sam, and their Mammy; Matilda( though they still called her "Mammy") to dine with them.
Mammy kept on looking at Hettie like she'd seen a ghost.
"What ever is the matter? You're staring at me as though I've sprouted a সেকেন্ড head, Mammy." ব্যক্ত Hettie, as she let her spoon clatter inside the bowl.
" That yeller powder on that there coin ' round yer neck......what did that, honey?" she asked, concerned.
" I don't know. I found it like that. It was on the watch fob and all over the floor." she answered, not telling her mammy just WHERE she found the watch, as she didn't know she had looted from the dead.
Mammy believed in Voodoo and Christianity, as well and God-knows-what-else, and most likely would've had a fit if she heard she had taken from a body.
"Lemme see it, if আপনি don't mind, Miss Hettie." ব্যক্ত Mammy, heaving her bulk up from the chair and holding out her hand as Hettie slipped the coin over her head and placed it in her hand.
There were still bits of the powder crusted into parts of the coin's design. Mammy scraped off some of it with the edge of her unused ছুরি and looked at the powder in her hands.
Something registered on her face, and dropped the powder on the floor like it was hot cigar ash.
"Miss Hettie! আপনি gotta get rid of that coin now! Bury it, burn it! dip it in a moving stream, I dunno, but that coin's got a mighty powerful curse on it!" ব্যক্ত Mammy, shocked.
"Nonsense, Mammy!" laughed Hettie," i found the coin, fair and square, and i intend to keep it!"
"Honey, that coin be cursed wit' something i ain't seen in years! আপনি can't keep it unless আপনি let me unhex it for ya!" ব্যক্ত Mammy, as she adjusted her flannel turban.
"I don't believe in such nonsense as curses." Hettie scoffed, and left the table, ভাপে সিদ্ধ করা half- finished.
She climbed the barren, wide staircase to her room. her room was one of the larger ones, and had many of the things she had stolen strewn about. She nearly tripped over a box containing three অথবা four pipe stem corsets ( named so for the shape they produced...sort of raised up at the sides, and displaying the contours of a woman's bosom through the dress) and flopped down on her bed, which puffed up around her because of the Eiderdown feathers the mattress was stuffed with.
She may have been dirt poor at the moment, but at least she wasn't being crushed দ্বারা basic needs such as clothing, warmth and food. ঘোড়া বিষয়ক could get shoes and people couldn't, that's how bad things were all around her! It was humbling to know that she had to work to survive, even if she was considered rich compared to her closest neighbors over at their plantation:Tara.
Then there was this ridiculous "curse" nonsense Mammy was blathering on about..... It did make her a trifle uneasy to be alone, though.
That's when it started. The first sign she wasn't alone in that room. She heard the floorboard creak behind her, as if someone had stepped into the room, seeing no one, she dismissed it as the old 18th century house settling.
Then she heard a sort of exhaling noise, as though someone had blown out a candle. then, she saw a flickering light behind her, and saw that someone had lit her fireplace.
Thinking it was Sarah, she called out into the hall to thank her, and her voice echoed around the house. she faintly heard Sarah's voice from the first floor, " Miss Hettie? What is it?"
She ran to the railing and saw Sarah below her " Did someone light up the আগুন in my bedroom?"
"No miss. We was all downstairs. None of us have been upstairs all day." she said, puzzled. " Why? Do আপনি need it lit?"
" That's just it, Sarah. It WAS lit when i had my back turned. When i turned around, there was no one." Hettie said, descending the staircase, her delicate boots clopping lightly on the floor.
"Mighty strange, miss...." she trailed off, uncertainly, and headed back to the dining room to finish dusting. (As if it ACTUALLY mattered if the room looked spotless. Who was going to see it?)
She heard a sigh of discontent behind her, and after what just happened, expected to see some ghoulish fiend behind her, but it was only Mammy looking at her with a disapproving frown.
"I's told আপনি that আপনি should've প্রদত্ত that to me to let me unhex it. Now আপনি gwine be haunted till আপনি do." huffed Mammy, as she made her way to her bedroom: a modest little thing, better than most Mammies would have.
Hettie was about to walk into the লাইব্রেরি when Alice pulled her aside and whispered " is it true that you're being haunted?"
She replied back to her sister, " No! I don't believe that! Ma and Pa would laugh if they heard আপনি talk that nonsense!"
What she lacked in good taste in men, she made up for in superstition, and she replied, " আপনি should listen to Mammy. She's wise."
"Yes, I'm well aware of that Alice." she ব্যক্ত dryly, and sat down on the loveseat and tried to read.
She couldn't concentrate on the book she was পাঠ করা (Ironically, a ghost story published a few years prior.), so she tried to go to sleep once she was back in her bedroom.
But she couldn't. It sounded as though someone were dancing about her room all night, and heard nothing but the beating of her heart, which was nearly drowned out দ্বারা the loud, thundering footfalls
When she woke up that morning, she felt dead tired, and hadn't slept a wink. She was just so tired!
Mammy noticed she looked haggard when she was eating her breakfast ( oatmeal, as she did every morning) and ব্যক্ত " আপনি look tired this morning, Miss Hattie. Did আপনি get much sleep last night?"
"No. No, Mammy, i did not. " she yawned heavily and nearly landed face-first in her oatmeal.
"I 'spect it's cause of that coin!" she grumbled as she prevented another near fall into Hattie's meal.
'I'm not going to let আপনি do anything to that coin! I found it, and there was nothing wrong with it!' she snapped
"Honey child, আপনি listen to me. it's not gwine get any easier for you! These curses eat at আপনি like a sickness till you've gone mad! Jest দ্বারা touching the thing, you've got the juju on you!"
" i don't believe in such nonsense." she said, for the third time that day.
Mammy left her alone and went to clean the dishes once the hot water was done boiling in the fireplace.
The week went দ্বারা with nightly hauntings and she stubbornly refused to let Mammy do her work on the coin. It would've been simple to fix it, according to Mammy, because all she had to do was dip it in a উৎস of moving water to de- curse it.
দ্বারা the time she had owned the coin for two weeks, she was plagued দ্বারা not just the phantom footsteps, but vivid hallucinations and ghostly whispers. She feared she had gone mad, but she was determined not to let this get to her.
"Hettie, আপনি look purely awful!" ব্যক্ত Charles, who seemed oblivious up until this point of her condition, most likely thinking it was her monthlies at work.
"I don't even have the energy to yell at you." she muttered weakly.
It was true. She DID look awful. Her usually pretty face was pale, she had dark circles under her eyes, which were bloodshot from lack of sleep.
" Lord Above! Hettie!" cried Alice when she saw her sister." আপনি look terrible!"
"So I've been told!" she muttered in annoyance.
"Are আপনি going to listen to me now?" asked Mammy
"No! i won't take any part in this! I don't believe!" shouted Hettie as a book crashed to her feet. It was the old family Bible, and someone had underlined the quote " Be not afraid, only believe", but they had scribbled out the "not".
Then, it happened. It started in the east end of the লাইব্রেরি and continued all the way to he west. She had to stumble backwards to avoid being struck with a volley of books. Nearly every book on that entire back shelf had been thrown off, and landed on the floor!
"NOW do আপনি believe Mammy?" Mammy asked
"I...I...it must..it must have been.........I... i don't know!" she sobbed
She heard a voice whisper in her ear " Look........."
And she saw what had happened to the Soldier she গাউন from. he was looking to raid the house of what little it had in the burnt out rooms. he was a deserter. what Hampton didn't know was that the things he was trying to steal belonged to the last slave that was there. She knew her ways when it came to voodoo, and she placed a curse on any that would steal from the soldier after she struck him on the head.
She woke up to find the coin gone from her neck. When she awoke fully, she was told the coin was cleansed and was buried দ্বারা Mammy.
She would never know the truth, though...........
_______________________________________
1976
Two men are metal detecting on the grounds of an old Plantation
the older of the two, Jed, get's a large hit on his machine from an area near the old slave quarters.
He calls to his younger brother, Jeffery who hands him a trowel, and they find an ancient looking leather bag. Inside it was a breathtaking 20 dollar স্বর্ণ coin from 1865...crusted with the remains of a fine yellow powder.
The end.
She made a face of disgust. It shouldn't have smelled, but it did. The " it" in প্রশ্ন was a former Solider...Cavalry..or maybe a foot soldier? It was hard to tell WHAT rank he was in the early morning light.
She dragged the body to a safer location: a deeper room in the mansion, to look through its pockets. Just what...... the Late Henry Hampton of the 2nd Regiment Cavalry of Pennsylvania was doing all the way in Atlanta was anybody's guess, but দ্বারা the looks of things, there had been some sort of fight.
The old Sullivan Plantation was burned down during Sherman's March last year, but some of the rooms were, for the most part, intact. She could see boot scuff marks, most likely Mr. Hampton's, and...some sort of powder. Whatever it was, it did NOT come from a gun. Yes..there appeared to be a sort of struggle, and Hampton was hit over the head with....aha! THIS piece of bannister! Most unladylike to be groping around for a murder weapon, but what did that matter anymore?
She was Henrietta "Hettie" Elsing, aged 28, after all. This WAS what she did best. She had been a well-to-do girl just four years ago, but, like most people, she had to scrape together a living, even if it meant looting like a no- account scallywag.
Lord, if her parents could see her now! She had been brought up better than this... MUCH better, but desperate times call for desperate measures, she thought as she gave Hampton a makeshift burial. ব্যক্ত some prayers, like she did when she buried her pa and made sure as hell not to bury the haversack and coat. She needed that coat!
Once, before the war, she had so many fine clothes! So many fine gowns, and coats and hats. Jewelry, too. It's been a hard few years, and the Plantation was luckier than others. It was saved, but she হারিয়ে গেছে many of her fine things, and she was wearing the same ক্র্যানবেরি wool গাউন, gown with tattered Chantilly জরি for a while now, washing it whenever it got soiled.
Her fiance had been captured in Spotsylvania and died in a prison, at least according to rumor. She had three loyal house servants, her sister, Alice, and her beau, Charles. They looted as much as they could, as often as they could, but, still, they were better off than most folks in the county.
A blast of icy January wind jarred Hettie out of her thoughts. She went looking through the pockets of the কোট before putting it on. All she found was the wallet, which contained the identification দ্বারা which she learned the man's name. The কোট was a bit big for her.
The bag was emptied rather unceremoniously, and hastily, unlike the careful manner to which she was accustomed to snooping through peoples belongings, but there was not a soul to be seen, so what did she care if she spooked some mice with the noise?
In the bag, she found a pistol and a full case of ammunition (Good. she'd need that.) Some clothes, and a স্বর্ণ watch. She couldn't believe her luck with the watch! It was heavy, and was engraved with the dead man's initials, and it had an ornate watch fob.
স্বর্ণ was gold, even if it WAS Yankee gold. She decided to keep the watch fob ( which was coated in that strange yellow powder as on the rest of the floor) as a pendant. It was a new, Union 20 dollar স্বর্ণ piece, worth nothing now that it was set into a bezel designed to look like braided rope.
She made her way back to the Plantation (named "Maycross") and was greeted দ্বারা Charles waiting for her দ্বারা the gate, lantern aloft, bundled up in coats and scarves.
" Land sakes, Hettie! I thought দ্বারা the time আপনি got back it'd be 1965!" he ব্যক্ত with a laugh, and an amused grin.
"I told আপনি NOT to call me that! Only my sister gets to call me ' Hettie"!" she snapped at her soon-to-be- brother-in-law. She couldn't stand him on most days. Usually, he was worse.
"I see আপনি got a decent haul." he said, nodding his head at the direction of the কোট and haversack.
" That I did." she said, her voice icy as the breeze.
The two walked into the shabby foyer of Maycross, and Charles signaled for Alice to come over to the dining hall, across from the লাইব্রেরি where she was reading.
" Did আপনি find anything?":she asked eagerly. as she glided over in her gray and পরাকাষ্ঠা plaid hoop স্কার্ট with the black frilled hem and the zig -zagged black frills towards the center. Her ব্লাউজ was white cotton with faded black velvet trim and the Garibaldi sleeves with the wide ends. Both were 4 years out of তারিখ and were courtesy of a previously unexplored attic in the neighboring Plantation. Alice still managed to glide... not walk.. glide across the floor. She always WAS the আরো graceful of the two.
Though they had acquired some valuables since they had to start looting, they were hurting for money, and Hettie actually LIKED looting, but was afraid to tell anyone.
Careful not to set off the loaded gun, she gingerly removed it from the haversack, where it was promptly placed on the fireplace mantle. She displayed the wallet, watch ( minus the fob, which she was wearing on a faded black cord on her neck) and the change of clothes to her sister and her obnoxious fiance.
Charles went to his nearly empty bedroom to change into the Union Soldiers old boots, শার্ট and pants. It was the first NEW set of clothes he had in a while since the damned blockade prevented them from sneaking any across.
Alice was admiring the watch fob on her sisters neck, graciously saying it brought out her eyes- which it did. It was about time she had some jewelry besides the tacky ear bobs she got from her mother.
Charles came swaggering out like he was dressed in a silk evening কোট instead of a heavily mended wool vest. He added the watch to his outfit.
"Dear, আপনি look wonderful!" ব্যক্ত Alice as she kissed her beau on both sides of his face.
What an idiot, Hettie thought. What does she SEE in that cad? He hasn't any আরো money than the rest of us!
Her maid, Sarah ( a negro girl of 18) announced ডিনার was ready- if আপনি could call it that. "Dinner" was the same God-awful beetroot stew. The Yankees left a cow and about 50 অথবা so chickens, which were barely making it through the winter, but they left the vegetable and cotton fields untouched, so they had an abundance of beets.
Then went about ladling the slop into their bowls, and sat down on the once-fine mahogany chairs, now scuffed with use. ডিনার was eaten in silence, and unlike most Plantation owners, Hettie and her sister allowed Sarah, their butler; Sam, and their Mammy; Matilda( though they still called her "Mammy") to dine with them.
Mammy kept on looking at Hettie like she'd seen a ghost.
"What ever is the matter? You're staring at me as though I've sprouted a সেকেন্ড head, Mammy." ব্যক্ত Hettie, as she let her spoon clatter inside the bowl.
" That yeller powder on that there coin ' round yer neck......what did that, honey?" she asked, concerned.
" I don't know. I found it like that. It was on the watch fob and all over the floor." she answered, not telling her mammy just WHERE she found the watch, as she didn't know she had looted from the dead.
Mammy believed in Voodoo and Christianity, as well and God-knows-what-else, and most likely would've had a fit if she heard she had taken from a body.
"Lemme see it, if আপনি don't mind, Miss Hettie." ব্যক্ত Mammy, heaving her bulk up from the chair and holding out her hand as Hettie slipped the coin over her head and placed it in her hand.
There were still bits of the powder crusted into parts of the coin's design. Mammy scraped off some of it with the edge of her unused ছুরি and looked at the powder in her hands.
Something registered on her face, and dropped the powder on the floor like it was hot cigar ash.
"Miss Hettie! আপনি gotta get rid of that coin now! Bury it, burn it! dip it in a moving stream, I dunno, but that coin's got a mighty powerful curse on it!" ব্যক্ত Mammy, shocked.
"Nonsense, Mammy!" laughed Hettie," i found the coin, fair and square, and i intend to keep it!"
"Honey, that coin be cursed wit' something i ain't seen in years! আপনি can't keep it unless আপনি let me unhex it for ya!" ব্যক্ত Mammy, as she adjusted her flannel turban.
"I don't believe in such nonsense as curses." Hettie scoffed, and left the table, ভাপে সিদ্ধ করা half- finished.
She climbed the barren, wide staircase to her room. her room was one of the larger ones, and had many of the things she had stolen strewn about. She nearly tripped over a box containing three অথবা four pipe stem corsets ( named so for the shape they produced...sort of raised up at the sides, and displaying the contours of a woman's bosom through the dress) and flopped down on her bed, which puffed up around her because of the Eiderdown feathers the mattress was stuffed with.
She may have been dirt poor at the moment, but at least she wasn't being crushed দ্বারা basic needs such as clothing, warmth and food. ঘোড়া বিষয়ক could get shoes and people couldn't, that's how bad things were all around her! It was humbling to know that she had to work to survive, even if she was considered rich compared to her closest neighbors over at their plantation:Tara.
Then there was this ridiculous "curse" nonsense Mammy was blathering on about..... It did make her a trifle uneasy to be alone, though.
That's when it started. The first sign she wasn't alone in that room. She heard the floorboard creak behind her, as if someone had stepped into the room, seeing no one, she dismissed it as the old 18th century house settling.
Then she heard a sort of exhaling noise, as though someone had blown out a candle. then, she saw a flickering light behind her, and saw that someone had lit her fireplace.
Thinking it was Sarah, she called out into the hall to thank her, and her voice echoed around the house. she faintly heard Sarah's voice from the first floor, " Miss Hettie? What is it?"
She ran to the railing and saw Sarah below her " Did someone light up the আগুন in my bedroom?"
"No miss. We was all downstairs. None of us have been upstairs all day." she said, puzzled. " Why? Do আপনি need it lit?"
" That's just it, Sarah. It WAS lit when i had my back turned. When i turned around, there was no one." Hettie said, descending the staircase, her delicate boots clopping lightly on the floor.
"Mighty strange, miss...." she trailed off, uncertainly, and headed back to the dining room to finish dusting. (As if it ACTUALLY mattered if the room looked spotless. Who was going to see it?)
She heard a sigh of discontent behind her, and after what just happened, expected to see some ghoulish fiend behind her, but it was only Mammy looking at her with a disapproving frown.
"I's told আপনি that আপনি should've প্রদত্ত that to me to let me unhex it. Now আপনি gwine be haunted till আপনি do." huffed Mammy, as she made her way to her bedroom: a modest little thing, better than most Mammies would have.
Hettie was about to walk into the লাইব্রেরি when Alice pulled her aside and whispered " is it true that you're being haunted?"
She replied back to her sister, " No! I don't believe that! Ma and Pa would laugh if they heard আপনি talk that nonsense!"
What she lacked in good taste in men, she made up for in superstition, and she replied, " আপনি should listen to Mammy. She's wise."
"Yes, I'm well aware of that Alice." she ব্যক্ত dryly, and sat down on the loveseat and tried to read.
She couldn't concentrate on the book she was পাঠ করা (Ironically, a ghost story published a few years prior.), so she tried to go to sleep once she was back in her bedroom.
But she couldn't. It sounded as though someone were dancing about her room all night, and heard nothing but the beating of her heart, which was nearly drowned out দ্বারা the loud, thundering footfalls
When she woke up that morning, she felt dead tired, and hadn't slept a wink. She was just so tired!
Mammy noticed she looked haggard when she was eating her breakfast ( oatmeal, as she did every morning) and ব্যক্ত " আপনি look tired this morning, Miss Hattie. Did আপনি get much sleep last night?"
"No. No, Mammy, i did not. " she yawned heavily and nearly landed face-first in her oatmeal.
"I 'spect it's cause of that coin!" she grumbled as she prevented another near fall into Hattie's meal.
'I'm not going to let আপনি do anything to that coin! I found it, and there was nothing wrong with it!' she snapped
"Honey child, আপনি listen to me. it's not gwine get any easier for you! These curses eat at আপনি like a sickness till you've gone mad! Jest দ্বারা touching the thing, you've got the juju on you!"
" i don't believe in such nonsense." she said, for the third time that day.
Mammy left her alone and went to clean the dishes once the hot water was done boiling in the fireplace.
The week went দ্বারা with nightly hauntings and she stubbornly refused to let Mammy do her work on the coin. It would've been simple to fix it, according to Mammy, because all she had to do was dip it in a উৎস of moving water to de- curse it.
দ্বারা the time she had owned the coin for two weeks, she was plagued দ্বারা not just the phantom footsteps, but vivid hallucinations and ghostly whispers. She feared she had gone mad, but she was determined not to let this get to her.
"Hettie, আপনি look purely awful!" ব্যক্ত Charles, who seemed oblivious up until this point of her condition, most likely thinking it was her monthlies at work.
"I don't even have the energy to yell at you." she muttered weakly.
It was true. She DID look awful. Her usually pretty face was pale, she had dark circles under her eyes, which were bloodshot from lack of sleep.
" Lord Above! Hettie!" cried Alice when she saw her sister." আপনি look terrible!"
"So I've been told!" she muttered in annoyance.
"Are আপনি going to listen to me now?" asked Mammy
"No! i won't take any part in this! I don't believe!" shouted Hettie as a book crashed to her feet. It was the old family Bible, and someone had underlined the quote " Be not afraid, only believe", but they had scribbled out the "not".
Then, it happened. It started in the east end of the লাইব্রেরি and continued all the way to he west. She had to stumble backwards to avoid being struck with a volley of books. Nearly every book on that entire back shelf had been thrown off, and landed on the floor!
"NOW do আপনি believe Mammy?" Mammy asked
"I...I...it must..it must have been.........I... i don't know!" she sobbed
She heard a voice whisper in her ear " Look........."
And she saw what had happened to the Soldier she গাউন from. he was looking to raid the house of what little it had in the burnt out rooms. he was a deserter. what Hampton didn't know was that the things he was trying to steal belonged to the last slave that was there. She knew her ways when it came to voodoo, and she placed a curse on any that would steal from the soldier after she struck him on the head.
She woke up to find the coin gone from her neck. When she awoke fully, she was told the coin was cleansed and was buried দ্বারা Mammy.
She would never know the truth, though...........
_______________________________________
1976
Two men are metal detecting on the grounds of an old Plantation
the older of the two, Jed, get's a large hit on his machine from an area near the old slave quarters.
He calls to his younger brother, Jeffery who hands him a trowel, and they find an ancient looking leather bag. Inside it was a breathtaking 20 dollar স্বর্ণ coin from 1865...crusted with the remains of a fine yellow powder.
The end.
