Angel’s Promise by Aleatha Romig

Emma

Miss Betsy?

“Edmée,” Jezebel said as she reached for my arm. “Please show Emma to where she’ll be staying. I’m afraid I’ve overdone.”

Edmée hurried down the stairs and over the packed dirt. She reached for Jezebel, wrapping her arm around Jezebel’s waist. Her dark orbs turned to me. “Help me, girl.”

I did the same, supporting Jezebel as we helped her up the stairs.

“Over there,” Jezebel said, nodding toward a row of rocking chairs.

“No, miss,” Edmée said, “You best lay down. The spirits have been too hard on you.”

“The chair is fine.”

Once Jezebel was seated, the sound of heavy footsteps from inside the house caused me to turn toward the screen door. Before I could see through the mesh, the door creaked and slammed against the house as Kyle burst onto the porch. In that instant, he was the brother I remembered, wearing blue jeans, Chuck Taylors, and a tight-fitting dry-fit short-sleeved shirt. His skin was tanner than I recalled and his blond hair was longer, mussed, and slightly curled.

While Kyle looked at me, he didn’t verbally acknowledge my presence; instead, he hurried to Jezebel. Holding the arm of the chair and crouching down in front of her, he asked, “Are you all right, Mom? Can I get you something?”

Turning at the sound of tires on loose dirt, I watched as the car we’d arrived in disappeared to somewhere behind the house. Holding the porch post, I stared out again to the land beyond this island of sorts that held the house, pondering if there was a route to escape. While I couldn’t recall driving over a bridge, from where I stood, it was the only possibility.

Gripping the post tighter, I knew I was again captive.

There might as well have been shutters covering windows.

The difference between where I was now and one of Rett’s suites was size.

Instead of being trapped in a nine-hundred-square-foot suite of rooms with a guard outside my door, I was captive in the middle of an untamed wilderness, my escape guarded not by a man but by insects and alligators.

The sweltering heat added to the uneasy feeling the landscape instilled. Large trees reached up to the sky, their roots—some visible—disappeared into the muck. High above, the leaves created a green ceiling successfully obscuring this settlement from the sky. At the waterline, the roots created cages and mazes where insects, reptiles, and animals could live, hide, and eat.

I turned to my left as bubbles surfaced in nearby wetland. As the others on the porch tended to Jezebel, I waited and watched. The bubbles grew larger and then stopped. Nothing surfaced and the water was too dark and dirty to see the source.

The realization came slowly.

We were in the interior of the bayou that Rett had mentioned.

I turned my attention back to Kyle and Edmée. They seemed to work in unison to placate Jezebel. Leaning back in the rocking chair, Jezebel fanned herself with Edmée’s fan. Her hand trembled and I noticed how her complexion had paled since I first saw her within the car.

“May I get her something to drink?” I asked, trying to help.

Three sets of eyes came my direction.

Jezebel was speaking, but from my distance, I couldn’t make out what she was saying.

Kyle nodded and stood.

Somehow, as he approached, my assessment of moments earlier shifted. Kyle had changed, grown, and matured. He seemed more muscular and taller than I remembered. I hadn’t noticed those features while in the grandeur of Rett’s home, but here on this porch, he was different.

Did men continue to grow after the age of twenty-three?

Even Kyle’s voice seemed deeper, more in command. “Come with me, Em.”

I shook my head and held on to the porch post. “Kyle, I need to call my husband.”

Kyle tilted his head to the inside as he opened the screen door.

“What about Ian and Noah?” I asked.

His expression hardened as he moved his head from side to side.

I’d seen this expression years before when he wanted his way. When we were ten and eleven it meant he didn’t want to hear my thoughts. Sixteen years later, I believed the meaning was the same.

With a deep breath and one last look at the bayou, I let go of the post and followed, careful of my heels not catching between the slats of wood on the porch floor.

Once we entered the house, the floor improved. The temperature seemed to rise not lower.

Perspiration beaded on my forehead and dripped down my back and between my breasts with each step. With the uncomfortable heat, I barely noticed my surroundings. Yet what I saw was unquestionably beautiful—polished hardwood floors, crystal lighting fixtures, and expensive furnishings. It reminded me of Rett’s home on a slightly less ostentatious scale.

Kyle continued to move deeper into the house, not saying a word.

Scanning my surroundings for a plan as we walked, I peered right and left. Within this hallway, we passed a wooden staircase with ornate banister posts, that led upstairs. There were also multiple doors and archways. From what I could see, the rooms were filled with natural light, the windows all opened. And yet the draperies hung motionless as no breeze infiltrated the stagnant air.

By the time we made it to the kitchen in the back of the house, my white blouse was sticking to my skin. I lifted my ponytail from my neck, wishing I had a clip or some way to keep it off of me.

The sound of our footsteps announced our arrival.

A couple—a man and a woman—turned our way. It appeared they’d been doing something with vegetables along a far countertop. When they saw us, or maybe when they saw Kyle, they both nodded, stopped what they were doing, and departed through the rear screen door.

Kyle walked around the counters and cupboards to a small hallway on the right. I followed a few steps behind. He stopped at a big wood door and pushed back a dead bolt, not unlike the one I’d had installed in the third-floor suite. Turning the knob, he opened the door.

“The heat takes some time to get used to,” he said. “You’ll be more comfortable down there. It isn’t really a basement, not like what we had in North Carolina. Edmée calls it a cellar.”

My neck straightened. “What? You expect me to go down in there?”

“It’s what Mother wants.”

“Oh hell no.”

“It’s not that bad, Em.” His deep, authoritative tone mellowed, sounding more like the brother in my memories. “We’ve all done our time. Now it’s your turn.”

My head shook. He’d been right about the heat. It was suffocating. “I don’t care what you did, Kyle.” I looked around the kitchen, pulling at the collar of my blouse. “Is there water?”

“In the faucet.”

“I was thinking bottled.”

“The water is like the cellar,” he said. “It takes time, but your body gets used to it. Now I have a suite upstairs.” He grinned. “Look at you; you’re sweating like crazy. You’d never be able to sleep up there.”

I didn’t care about his suite. My thirst was growing by the second. “You drink the water?”

“You will too. Once the fever passes, you’ll be better than new. Mother knows what’s best.”

As I tried to generate saliva, I had the sensation of a bad movie, Children of the Corn or something. Finally, I spoke, “I’m worried about Ian and Noah. Do you know what happened to them?”

“I wasn’t there. You’ll have to ask Liam when he returns.”

“Returns?” I asked, looking around and seeing a refrigerator. “If there’s electric, why isn’t there air conditioning?”

“Mother doesn’t like it too cold.”

I recalled Kyle’s comment about Liam. “You said return. Liam doesn’t live here too, does he?”

Kyle nodded. “For now. It’s safest. Greyson was here too” —he paused as a dark shadow covered his expression— “before your husband had him killed.”

According to Rett, Greyson was trying to kill me. Instead of going down that rabbit hole, I said, “What about the refrigerator? Is there something to drink in there?”

Kyle went to a cupboard and reached for a glass. With a huff, he lifted the faucet and filled it with a cloudy liquid.”

He turned, handing it my way.

“I’m not drinking that.”

He smiled and set it on the countertop. “You will.”

I spun around the kitchen that was both old-fashioned and modernized. There were no hard-surface counters or spectacular lighting fixtures. The counters were metal and the lights plain. Yet everything that was mandatory seemed present. “Where are we?” I turned to Kyle. “Tell me what’s happening.”

“Are you asking about the details on the monster you married?”

Closing my eyes, I imagined the man I married. When I did, I didn’t see a monster or a devil. I saw a man who I desperately wanted to contact, not because he’d be upset or worried, but because I didn’t want to be the cause of his distress. I’d tell him I was safe. This place was weird and a bit creepy, yet for some reason, I didn’t feel that I was in danger.

I’d admit that my new biggest worry was for him.

It was more than worry.

I cared.

No matter how hard I’d tried to protect my heart, as I stood in what could rightfully be described as hell’s kitchen, my concern wasn’t for me but for him. I told Rett he couldn’t have my heart, but now with the passing of time, I could admit, if only to myself, that when it came to Everett Ramses, I cared—deeply.

“No,” I replied, “I’m not asking you about Rett. I want to know what the hell is happening here, where we are, and when I will be able to contact Rett.”

“I would tell you, but Mother wants to explain.” Kyle tilted his head toward the cellar. “You should rest. Our mother keeps odd hours. When she calls, you need to come.”

“How is she our mother?” I stared up at the person I’d always considered my brother. For a while, I wondered if it was biological. Now, I’m confused by what Jezebel said. “What she said doesn’t make sense.”

“I’m not supposed to say.” Kyle flashed me his six-hundred-watt grin, the one that let him get away with too much when he was in high school. “But like when we were kids, Em. I can’t tell you, but if you guessed...” He shrugged.

“We can’t be siblings. Jezebel only had one child.”

“That’s what she wanted our father to think.”

“She said we shared a womb.” The answer hit me—another movie plot. “Shit, am I Princess Leia?”

Kyle nodded. “Yeah, you got it. That makes me Luke.”

I recalled the conversation in the car. “Jezebel said—”

“Don’t call her that. She’s our mother. She deserves the title.”

“Why? She gave birth. She didn’t raise us.”

His expression darkened. “Stop, Emma. Don’t let the spirits hear you talk like that.”

God, he sounded like Miss Guidry.

I shook my head and peered around the kitchen. Nothing made sense.

I decided to focus on the one question and avoid the usage of proper nouns. “She said we shared her womb. But we can’t be twins, Kyle. We have different birthdates. I don’t mean one day and the next. You’re eight months older than me.”

Kyle shook his head. “Let her tell you. She’s waited a long time to tell us both what happened and is happening. It’s been planned out...fuck...for longer than we’ve been alive.” He was back to holding the edge of the door.

“Kyle, I’m not going in that cellar.” I looked pleadingly at him. “You remember how I am about locks.”

“Fuck, the smoke.”

“It was fire, Kyle, not just smoke. I was trapped.”

“The fire was outside. You only thought you were trapped.”

A group of us kids had been playing a game—truth or dare type. Greyson and Kyle dared me and my friend to go into the hall closet and see how long we could stay. At first it was easy, until we realized the door was locked. Even so, neither of us panicked until the smoke. Our first thought was that the house was going to burn down with us trapped in a closet.

Ironically, it was Liam who opened the door.

Even today, thinking about the chain of events made my skin crawl.

I wasn’t going to debate this incident with him again fifteen years after it occurred. “I won’t go down into that cellar if the door is going to be locked.” When Kyle didn’t reply, I added, “Mom and Dad understood.”

His lips formed a straight line. “The O’Briens always gave into you, Em. It’s time to grow up.”

“Grow up? I’m not the one living with my mother.”

Kyle’s jaw clenched and his nostrils flared as he took a deep breath. “Go down in the cellar. It’s furnished and not bad.” When I didn’t move, he added, “If you want, I’ll go down with you. But you have to stay, and I’ll tell everyone the door can’t be locked.”

My eyes closed as a tear slipped down my cheek. I wasn’t sad. Frustrated combined with a lingering uneasiness would be a better description of the cause. “I need to call Rett.”

“Even if I handed you a phone, there’s no reception, not with regular phones. There’s something about the ground out here, it defies reason.”

“Is there internet?”

“Do you know his phone number?” Kyle asked, his tone turning mocking.

“No, but...”

“His email?”

My heart was pounding faster. “You do, don’t you?”

“And you’re married to the man, sis. He doesn’t love you. You’re his captive. Face the facts. Mother has plans, and Everett Ramses knows his time is about to end. You were nothing more to him than a means to an end. Well, I have news; it’s not going to end well for him.”

I felt the twist in my chest. Rett and I had agreed to leave love off the table, but I cared. Damn it, I cared.

Part of me feared that it was an epiphany I’d made too late.

I pushed that thought away.

“Kyle, Rett’s been honest with me. I know what I am to him and what he is to me. He’s my husband. Please, Kyle.”

Kyle lifted his chin. “My name’s now Isaiah, use it. There’s a toilet and sink down there. Go. Unless you want to drink the water.”

Avoiding the doorway seemed impossible. “You said you’d take me down?”

“Fine, follow me.”

Before we could venture through the door and down the steps, voices came from the front of the house, loud voices. My breath caught at the loudest one. It was a man’s voice, and he was saying something about Eugene from the Park Boys.

“What is a park boy?”

“Wait here,” Kyle said as he walked past me toward the front of the house.