“Miss Hartwell had a room made up for me. I’m going to stay for the estate sale and the closing of the will,” Charlotte said.
“The Ladies of the Biltmore Society, a garden club you might say that your great-aunt chaired, will be anxious to meet you. We’ll have to throw a party,” Mrs. Twiggs said.
Charlotte smiled.
Chapter 4
A Grand Reopening
Biltmore Village
Nestled in the mountains where the Swannanoa River flows into the French Broad was Biltmore Village, formerly known as the town of Best and before that it was home to the Cherokee. That all changed when George Vanderbilt began construction on his great estate and needed homes for the craftsmen required to build it. Biltmore Village was modeled after a small English village, providing a fitting and quaint entrance to the Biltmore Estate.
In the middle of the village, the green was being mowed for the upcoming May Day celebration. In the early 1900s, the parish school erected a maypole and a flower-adorned throne for the May queen, a celebration the ladies were bringing back this spring.
Stepping along the uneven cobblestone sidewalk, we reached the Leaf & Page, standing as it had for over a century. It was hard to distinguish from the others as all the homes, now storefronts, were built from brick, stucco, pebbledash, and wood timber, giving the building an old-world charm in this new-world town. In the etched glass of the picture window, Mrs. Twiggs displayed first editions related to the Vanderbilt family, the Biltmore Estate and Asheville along with her jars of exotic teas. Mrs. Twiggs unlocked the door of the Leaf & Page. I hurried in behind her, Pixel behind me. Abigail pulled a cigarette out of her leather coat. As she raised it to her lips, I gave her a quick tap with my claw on her leg. She glared at me, harrumphing, and shoved the cigarette back in her pocket.
Mrs. Twiggs opened the door, flipping on the lights. We followed her inside. She strolled about the front room, opening the shutters, letting in the early morning sunlight. She walked behind the cash register counter and stared at the portrait of her late husband Albert. The picture blurred and swirled into a mist as Albert appeared in front of us. “My darling, you seem troubled,” Albert said, levitating inches off the floor.
Mrs. Twiggs reached to embrace him. “Shadows and mist,” I whispered.
Albert’s memory was etched into the walls of the Leaf & Page. Mrs. Twiggs had always felt his presence, but since her turning, she could now see and communicate with him. She pulled back not able to touch him. “Albert, I miss you so.”
“Beatrice, my love, we have many lives together before and after this world.”
Mrs. Twiggs smiled. In his previous life, Albert had been a cynic, a lover of science, a pragmatist, but since his death he had become a believer.
A torn and tattered book floated off the shelf, landing on the counter, its pages flipped open. Mrs. Twiggs smiled and read the passage from The Journal of Elizabeth Lightfoot Roadman Rankin. “My beloved William struggles with the conflict. His friends and peers sympathize with the secession of the South, but he feels it will tear our beloved Asheville apart as others fight to keep the Union together. In hopes to quiet the hearts of our community, I am hosting a dinner to bring both sides together. Maybe they can come to peace.”
Mrs. Twiggs closed the journal. “Terra, I’ve been asked by the curator at the Biltmore to help with their upcoming Civil War exhibit.” Encompassing eight thousand acres, the Biltmore Estate was a grand mansion. Its two hundred fifty rooms made it the largest mansion in the United States, and it brought droves of tourists to Asheville. Their exhibits changed seasonally.
“Are you sure you’re up to all this? Opening the store? Helping at the Biltmore?” I asked her.
Mrs. Twiggs fell onto a chair with a heavy thud. “It’s not the same without Emma. She was the Biltmore Society. I feel I owe it to her to continue on.” She patted the book in her lap. “This journal was written by the wife of a predominant Asheville businessman. She chronicled the events of Asheville before and during the Civil War. I hope it will help with the exhibit. They’re bringing in an expert, a scholar from the University of Richmond, to curate.”
Albert glided across the floor and sat down next to Mrs. Twiggs. He reached for the book but was unable to turn the pages. She held it out to him, hovering it above his lap. He skimmed the pages, his head nestled alongside hers.
I strolled across the top of the couch, listening as they read from the memoirs. They read late into the night, Mrs. Twiggs’s head bouncing up and down, struggling to stay awake. Until finally sleep took her. I said good night to Albert as he vanished back into his portrait.
I heard moaning from the back room. I ran to find Pixel hunched up in a corner under a table. “Pixel, what’s wrong?”
“Terra, Pixel scared.”
“Scared of what?”
“That man. He not real.”
“You can see Albert, Pixel?”
Pixel nodded his head.
“It’s okay, Pixel, he’s a friend.”
“He not real, Terra.”
“He’s a ghost, Pixel, a good ghost. That’s Mrs. Twiggs’s husband.”
“He dead?”
“He left this life, and he is living another, Pixel. He lived many lives.”
“Pixel no understand.”
I could hear his stomach growling. “How about we have a snack and I’ll explain.”
Pixel thought for a moment, scratched his chin, and said, “Pixel eat.” He came out from under the table and circled around me. He made fast work of the butter cookies that Mrs. Twiggs had next to her tea. I watched him carefully. Something was not right. First the premonition, now he was able to see ghosts. These were abilities of the fairy world. Not seen nor understood by the humans who shared the earth. Animals especially cats can sense the spirit world; upon occasion they will sit perfectly still, staring at a wall. Cats’ whiskers are like a tuning fork. They send out vibrations that attract spirits; in turn, the whiskers can sense the vibrations that spirits create as they part the molecules that comprise the waking world. Spirits, more so ghosts, as the humans call them, are memories and energy with no form in the physical realm. They appear as we expect them, as Mr. Twiggs, for example. He appears to his wife as he did in life, and I see him through his image from his portrait above the register. Pixel knew him not by either, yet he saw him in the form of a man as fairy folk would. That gave me great concern.
“What fairies, Terra?” he said, looking up with crumbs on his whiskers.
“I didn’t think I thought that out loud.” Curious and curiouser, I thought, stealing a line from Lewis Carroll.
Pixel finished his cookie. It was nearly midnight. Mrs. Twiggs would be up at five, preparing the store, making blueberry muffins. I could tell that the events of Halloween were a strain on her. She needed to return to normalcy, get back to her human routine. I curled up next to Pixel by the fire, its heat warming us, and drifted off.
When I woke, I heard Mrs. Twiggs bustling around the kitchen, Pixel underfoot.
“Me hungry. Me hungry,” Pixel chanted repeatedly.
“It’s coming, Pixel,” Mrs. Twiggs said.
I sauntered into the kitchen, my tail swiping the wall as I entered. Pixel scurried in between Mrs. Twiggs’s legs, his tail pointed upright, shaking ferociously. It was early, not quite dawn. But the announcement of the reopening of the Leaf & Page would bring all the regulars out hungry for Mrs. Twiggs’s tea, scones, and muffins.
We followed Mrs. Twiggs out to her small garden behind the store. She opened the henhouse door. “Good morning, ladies,” she said. I heard Pixel’s stomach growl. I gave him a look. He smiled and lay down in the dewy grass. Mrs. Twiggs filled a basket with eggs and then stopped to check her herb garden. Fairy lights lit our way along the stepping-stone path. She stopped at a tiny fairy cottage and opened the door. She was not surprised to find no one at home. Mrs. Twiggs was a believer even before her magic was awakened. She knew that fairy tales were just that, a tale for children. Mrs. Twiggs, she was a child at heart.