“Bring her out. It’s not worth the risk to her.”
Disappointed, Landry knew it was the right call. Tiffany’s welfare was all that mattered. He wondered if they’d all succumbed to some kind of mass hypnosis. And he hoped all the strangeness — the weather, the balcony, the girl Caprice — had been recorded by Phil’s crew.
As Dr. Little began the words and process of bringing her back, the ones watching left their seats and moved closer to watch.
“Caprice, let’s move forward in time now. Come with me —"
Her eyes flew open and her body became rigid as she screamed, “There she is! I tole you somethin’ bad was gonna happen, Elberta! Look out, girl!” As one, the stunned observers looked up.
In the mist above the patio, a girl with milk-chocolate skin wearing nothing but a lacy white camisole stumbled through the darkened doorway onto the balcony. She was strikingly beautiful, but her face was a mask of terror. She caught herself on the railing and screamed. Another woman, a taller, older one, stepped through the doorway, shouted, “Die, you hellion!” and pushed the girl over the railing.
Tiffany lay still on the recliner as everyone else reacted instinctively to a body soaring through space toward where Doc Adams and the psychologist sat. The men jumped up, knocking over their chairs as shouts from those assembled echoed throughout the courtyard.
Landry jerked back and fell against a six-foot tripod that supported a stage light. It crashed to the ground and shattered as he tumbled hard against the fountain.
It was over in a split second.
“Keep filming!” the addled director ordered as Landry rushed past Tiffany’s recliner to the spot where the girl on the balcony fell to the courtyard.
She wasn’t there.
There were paving stones but nothing else. No crushed body, no bleeding, dying girl in a white camisole.
He looked up. “What the —"
There were no balcony or iron stairway, and in seconds the clouds disappeared. Everything was as it had been before. As sunshine lit the patio, there was mass confusion, questions without answers, and a hypnotized subject who seemed unwilling — or unable — to return to the twenty-first century.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Landry instructed the guests to return to their seats. Tiffany had been in a trance for two hours, far longer than Little anticipated. As the onlookers watched, he resumed his efforts.
“Tiffany, can you hear me?”
No response.
“Tiffany?” Dr. Little paused and said, “Caprice, are you still with us?”
“Still here. I ain’t answerin’ to Tiffany no mo’. You see what Madam did? I tole that girl to quit her evil ways. Now she dead.”
“Was that Elberta?”
“Yes. But more’s goin’ on now. Massah Lucas is up there now. See him on the balcony?”
For everyone else in the courtyard, the portal to 1832 had closed. Only Tiffany could see what was happening now.
Landry knew the history. He knew Lucas LaPiere would die next.
As everyone stared at the second-floor windows, she described what was happening.
Madam LaPiere went back into the bedroom as her husband stepped onto the balcony in a light-colored nightshirt. He looked down and shouted, “Prosperine, you killed her, you crazy bitch! You’ll hang for this!”
“If I shall hang, then let her partner die for his sins,” she bellowed, rushing out and catching him by surprise. Tiffany described how she grabbed his shirt; he lost his footing and reached for the railing as he fell forward. Prosperine knocked his hand away and pushed him over.
“There he go tumblin’ down just like Elberta,” Caprice declared. “Now she done killed them both.” She sat upright again and pointed to a far corner of the courtyard, beyond the fountain. “Oh my. See James standin’ over there? He was there the whole time. Gonna be trouble for him.”
“Who’s James?”
“James? Another house servant like me. He helps Massah Lucas fix things.”
She was silent for over a minute, looking first at the window and then gazing around the courtyard.
“What’s happening now?” Dr. Little asked.
“Madam comin’ down the stairs, she is. She callin’ for James, all sweet-like. ‘Come here, James,’ she say, and he goin’ over to her. I can’t hear them now ‘cause I’m inside and she’s talkin’ real low.” She paused again and said James had gone to the tool room and brought a shovel. She described Prosperine LaPiere standing by the bodies, showing James which flagstones to remove in the courtyard, and ordering him to dig a grave.
Landry perked up. Any chance to link a legend with reality was very important information. “Ask her to show us where he’s digging,” he whispered to Dr. Little.
“Caprice, can you stand and point to where he’s digging the hole?”
She looked at him and shook her head in disgust. “Why you need my help? Look for yo’self. I can’t go out there and point ‘cause Madam will see me.”
“I can’t see it very well. Use words to tell me where it is.” She obeyed, pinpointing the location so closely that Landry now had a verifiable clue that could prove Tiffany’s words true.
Landry turned to look at the building behind them — the one that had been the servants’ quarters in the 1800s. There were doors and windows on the first floor. A shiver went down his spine as he sat here in 2020 looking into the same window Caprice was looking out in 1832. Today that window was empty, but he knew a terrified servant had just witnessed two murders from behind those old panes.
“Caprice, let’s move ahead now. We’re going to 1837. That’s five years forward. Move with me. One year, then another...keep going with me as we go five years. Are you with me? Have we traveled five years ahead?”
She was silent.
“I don’t think she’s alive in 1837,”
