Hell's Belles Read online

  Zillah’s face looked panicked. Yet she still had the audacity to respond, “Better to be nothing than something depraved. And as if I would ever want to be a Belle again. Besides, since when do you care what I think?”

  “I don’t,” Calista lowered the table over Zillah’s head as she walked forward. “But you don’t mess with one of us. You know that. You speak to her like that again and you deal with me. Let’s not forget what depravity is capable of, Zillah.”

  Zillah backed down. “Its fine. We’re good.”

  As Zillah walked away, the tables slowly moved back to their original places. The girls that had been seated at them were stone still, many of them holding their breath. My mouth was wide open as I looked at Josephine. Calista was walking out the back entrance of the cafeteria. The other girls started murmuring around us. I began to speak but Josephine shushed me.

  She shook her head. “Don’t say anything. Follow us to the back.”

  Somehow I was able to gather myself together enough to do just that.

  We walked silently down the back hallway, the sound of the lunchtime crowd growing fainter and fainter. Calista was muttering to herself as Josephine and I walked quickly behind her.

  “Josephine, we need Aleta here,” Calista rounded a sharp corner past a row of lockers. Two Bronwyn girls jumped out of our way as we hurried by them to the back door that Virginia and I had come in from earlier that morning.

  “We can’t skip on Emma’s first day-” Josephine began, but Calista was having none of it.

  “Who cares? Aleta needs to be here. We have to tell Emma. Virginia is being too vague with her and she needs to know what’s going on or they’re going to keep messing with her until I have another incident.”

  I looked from Josephine back to Calista. “What are you talking about? Why does everything have to be such a mystery with you guys?”

  Calista stopped and turned to me. “Because once you know, you can’t un-know. Virginia means well, she does. She wants to ease you into this life and I’m more of the philosophy that baptism by fire is the best route. But in order for you to know anything, we need Aleta here. Josephine, text her. Now.”

  Chapter 16

  Aleta showed up about half an hour later in a Mercedes G-Wagon.

  “How did you get this? Virginia would kill you if she saw you in her new ride!” Josephine called out. We had been waiting out in the parking lot in the searing Charleston sunshine. I didn’t care what Aleta was driving. I just wanted to be in air conditioning.

  “She’s gone down to Johns Island until tonight,” Aleta smiled at me as I climbed into the backseat. “Good first day of school?”

  Before I could say anything, Calista interrupted. “She had a run in with Zillah. I was hoping we could avoid her and her crew for at least the first couple of days, but no such luck. Zillah was on her immediately.”

  Aleta’s face darkened. “What happened?”

  I sat quietly as Calista and Josephine reported on the day’s very strange events. Aleta didn’t say anything as they spoke, just drove quietly over the marshes and bridges to get us back home.

  So many unanswered questions competed in my head. I didn’t know which one to focus on first. I had seen Calista throw tables across a crowded cafeteria with the power of her mind. How was it conceivable? And the strangest thing of all was that no one in the lunchroom even acted like it was such a big deal.

  It made me wonder what other secrets lived in that school. But mostly I was concerned about why Calista, someone so commanding, would ever be worried about Zillah March. There was clearly something I was missing.

  “It doesn’t sound like she was aggressive,” Aleta said as she turned her signal on to merge right. “For Zillah that sounds pretty harmless.”

  “It wasn’t that it was so terrible,” Josephine chimed in. “It’s that Zillah even cared at all. We’ve all stayed out of one another’s business these last few years.”

  Aleta looked over at me. “Well, Emma being here changed things.”

  I sighed. “Can you please stop with all this vague discussion? I would love to know what’s going on. You told me you would tell me everything,” I pointedly said to Aleta. “Remember that? No more ambiguity.”

  Calista interjected, “Aleta, I told her that once she knows everything there’s no going back. Virginia made it clear that we have to…”

  “Virginia isn’t here,” Aleta replied. “I think we should go to Montagu.”

  Calista and Josephine both sucked in their breath at the same time. There was an eerie silence in the car.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Josephine leaned toward Aleta’s seat. “Virginia would go nuts.”

  “Well, it’s going to be impossible to tell her unless she sees it.” Aleta drove past Virginia’s home. “We’re going to Montagu.”

  “Virginia told me about Montagu,” I said. “It’s the house she’s renovating, right?”

  The three of them looked back and forth at one another.

  “Kind of,” Josephine said. “I think we should wait for Virginia.”

  Aleta looked back at Calista in the rearview mirror. “What do you think? Majority decision. Should we wait or should we take her now?”

  Calista stared at me for a moment, her head clearly going through the decision. She looked over at Josephine. “Sorry, Jo. I vote now. It’s easier to ask forgiveness than permission. Virginia will be fine.”

  I hadn’t seen so much as a grimace on Josephine’s face since I had arrived in Charleston, but I could tell she was upset. The mood of the car changed. Calista noticed it too.

  “Don’t be like that. We need you with us. It was a fair vote.”

  Josephine shook her head. “It’s just such a terrible idea. I don’t understand why y’all can’t see that.”

  Chapter 17

  Montagu Street was about five minutes away from Virginia’s home. When we reached the house there was a decidedly different reaction to it than the one I’d had when I first saw the wrought-iron gates of Virginia’s mansion.

  “This place looks condemned,” I observed. Before me sat a dilapidated, rundown home. It looked like it may have been impressive long ago. Perhaps before the Civil War. Or before the American Revolution. Shutters hung askew and the porches on the first and second floors looked like they would crumble at any moment. This place didn’t just need a renovation. It needed to be bulldozed and built all over again.

  The three of them started walking up the dry rotted steps to a large front door that looked like it was barely hanging on to the frame of the house.

  “Do we seriously need to go in?” I asked, “You guys can just talk to me outside. I feel like we need hard hats. This place looks dangerous.”

  Aleta walked back down the steps toward me. “It’s not what it seems, Emma. You’ll understand once we’re inside.”

  I nervously walked up the steps. I noticed the windows were cracked and birds had made a nest out of the porch lamp. This was all just so odd.

  Calista pressed her body against the heavy door. It was dark at first, so dark I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face, much less any of the girls. I hoped this wasn’t some weird Belle hazing initiation. I wasn’t in the mood for any of that.

  I heard the door shut behind us. As soon as it did, light filled the room.

  The inside was as opposite from the outside as it could get. We were in a foyer that looked straight out of Architectural Digest. Modern, lustrous furniture filled the space. Large thresholds led to enormous, sweeping rooms that looked like something straight out of the Pottery Barn catalog. Better than that, actually, but I didn’t know the names of any fancier furniture stores. An open kitchen layout showed granite counters and bowls filled with fresh fruit. Vivaldi played faintly over invisible speakers throughout the first floor.

  “What is going on?” I asked, completely confused.

  Aleta stepped forward. “This is our safe house. Virginia built it decades ago, but just
recently updated the interior. She was tired of the antique feel. The outside is a kind of camouflage of sorts. No one bothers us or this house. People passing by assume it’s just an unwanted dump, waiting to be gentrified by the Charleston yuppies.”

  “Okay. What do you need a safe house for?” I asked. “You can read people’s minds and Calista can throw a truck at them if she wants to. Who are you trying to protect yourselves from?”

  Calista rolled her eyes. Aleta continued, “It’s not so much a safe place for people. It’s a safe place for things that don’t need to be in the wrong hands. Come, I’ll explain.”

  I followed her down a hallway toward the rear of the house. Josephine and Calista trailed behind us. As we got to what looked like a mud room I thought we might be going into the backyard. There were coat hooks and a place to sit to take off what I assumed were boots and shoes. Aleta looked at me and said, “Sit on the bench.”

  I sat down. Josephine and Calista scooted in next to me. Aleta grabbed one of the coat hooks and suddenly the floor was moving.

  “Holy hell, give a girl some warning!” I said as the bench we were sitting on lowered itself through the floor. A few moments later we were in what looked like a finished basement. We stood up, Aleta pressed the coat hook again and the bench went back up to the first floor, leaving us downstairs.

  The lights had been dim in this part of the house, but as we walked down another much longer hall, everything became brighter.

  The hall went way past what could possibly be the foundation of the house above us. Each door was steel, like something that would be in a bank or a prison. We must have walked for five minutes before we finally came to the end of it.

  “Is this a bunker?” I asked. “I mean, this must go under a couple of blocks of Montagu.”

  “Yep,” Aleta nodded. “It does. Very few of the homes downtown have basements, since we’re basically at sea level downtown. This was expensive, very expensive, actually, to have built. Even by Charleston standards. It’s been here for a long time. Even with the strongest hurricanes, it’s never flooded. It’s been a safe place for some of Charleston’s elite over the last hundred years or so. Which is why it’s closely protected and guarded.” Aleta started to punch in some buttons to a keypad outside the last door, but stopped. She looked at me.

  “But we get a heads up when hurricanes are coming, anyway, thanks to our friend from Pawley’s Island,” Josephine added. I couldn’t have been more confused.

  Calista cocked her head sideways. “Jo. All this is enough. She doesn’t need to hear about that old ghost today.”

  Before I could inquire about the “ghost,” Aleta cut in. “Hush, you two! One thing at a time! Emma,” Aleta was serious now. “I have to tell you that this will change a lot of things. What we are about to show you is one of our biggest secrets. Virginia wanted this to be a gradual process; the revelations, I mean. But with you now being on Zillah March’s radar, I feel like it’s important for you to know what we’re up against with her.”

  What on earth could possibly be behind that door? Dead bodies? Dinosaurs? A tomb? Vampires? The fountain of youth? I couldn’t imagine what could possibly be such a big deal. I had just found out there were people who existed in this world that were capable of otherworldly things and that I happened to be one of them. What secret could ever be bigger than that one?

  “Aleta, at this point there’s not much that could shock me,” I turned to Josephine and Calista. Calista, who up until now had always seemed so cool and collected, was clearly anxious.

  “Just open it,” she said. Josephine slowly nodded. “We’re here now. There’s no going back.”

  Aleta pushed a code into a numbered pad that was next to the fortified entry. I couldn’t even possibly begin to imagine why a door like that was needed. I braced myself for what was next.

  The door slid to the side, like a pocket door. It was slow and deliberate and I could see it was dark again on the other side. As we stepped forward another, even larger entrance greeted us. This time, Aleta put her hand on a pad that seemed to be reading her palm print. The pocket door behind us closed and then the newer door slowly opened.

  I felt like I was in the Pentagon. Or a spy movie.

  We stepped through again. Before the lights came on, Aleta said out loud. “Aleta Indigo with Calista Embers, Josephine Berkshire, and Emma Ayers.”

  Lights began to illuminate everything around us. Out of the corner of my eye, I could have sworn I saw someone there, inside, but then they, or it, dissipated just as quickly as I’d noticed. I refocused on the new room, and suddenly it became apparent what this was.

  “Holy. Shit.” My eyes widened at the sight that was before me.

  Chapter 18

  I was in a room that was straight out of Duck Tales. Merritt and I had watched that cartoon as kids. We always got a kick out of Scrooge McDuck swimming around in all his gold coinage that sat in his enormous money vault.

  This was that vault come to life.

  The four of us stood on a platform that overlooked a gigantic warehouse room filled with treasure. The majority of it was gold coins but there were all kinds of riches among this chamber of wealth. I was astonished at the extent of what this room held. And that it was all underneath an oblivious city’s streets.

  “So are you guys pirates or something? Treasure hunters? What is this?” I leaned over the railing. “How deep does all of this go?”

  “It varies. Most of it is piled up into ten foot heaps and organized by where it was found and when,” Aleta looked at me. “We aren’t treasure hunters or pirates. We are the keepers of it though. And all of it was collected by Zillah March.”

  We walked down a flight of stairs. Piles of jewels and coins surrounded us, glinting. I’d never seen such shiny things. And Zillah had collected all of this? How? Why? And what were we doing with all of it? I found it hard to believe that Zillah would give any of it up easily.

  “Josephine, I give you permission to calm me down. This is overwhelming,” I jokingly said. Josephine didn’t crack a smile.

  “I can’t,” She said. “I mean; I know you’re kidding around but none of us can use our powers once we’re in the house.”

  I stopped walking and looked at her. “If I gave you my permission though, right? Or if it was an emergency?”

  Josephine shook her head. “No, we couldn’t even if we wanted to. That’s part of the deal here.”

  “Why would you agree to something like that?”

  “It’s complicated,” Aleta said. “But it’s important that the people we want to keep out can’t use their abilities here. So it’s worth sacrificing the capability to use our own. You’ll understand in a moment.”

  We walked to a corner of the warehouse that had a large amount of gold coins and numerous bars of silver and gold behind Plexiglas.

  “Why is this stuff separated from the rest?” I asked.

  Aleta put her hand on the glass, “Because it’s one of the most elusive and searched for treasures in American history.”

  When I was fourteen years old my parents took my sister and I on a Civil War road trip tour. My mother was writing a book on it and she wanted to have us participate in her research. We started in Gettysburg (naturally) and worked our way south. We would have preferred a trip to Nags Head or even Myrtle Beach, but my mother didn’t believe in leisure, it seemed. She wanted every single day of our existence to be a learning experience. It was exhausting. Merritt and I just wanted to get tan and meet boys. We were not complicated girls.

  After three long days in Manassas, we were spent. We told our parents we would rather stay at a hotel than listen to another tour guide go on and on and on about the conditions of a war we couldn’t find any sort of glory in.

  “Why am I supposed to feel bad for the South?” Merritt asked as we drove our rental car down 95 toward Richmond, the capitol of the Confederacy.

  “When did I ask you to feel anything about either side?” My mother turned to
us. “It’s not about picking sides. It’s about understanding how we got there in the first place. You should be very grateful that you have the opportunity to see history up close like this. It’s not enough to read about it. Seeing it and feeling it can’t be taken for granted. Whether you like it or not, this is where you’re from. Or at least, where parts of your DNA are from.” My mother smiled and touched my knee. “Every history has an ugly side. But there is also always something to find in it, to learn from. That’s all I ask, that you keep your mind open to it. Try to imagine what life was like during this time.”

  My mom was such a teacher.

  Merritt and I both rolled our eyes and put our earphones in, escaping in our heads to the sound of pop music. I didn’t know about my sister but I was fantasizing about getting stranded near a beach where there wasn’t a historical landmark within a hundred miles. It was summer, after all.

  That night we checked into the Radisson and had dinner downtown in an old tobacco warehouse on a street that was all cobblestones. As our van drove over it, I could feel the bumps in my bones.

  Richmond was rowdy at night. College kids drunkenly walked up and down Shockoe Bottom. After dinner we had the best strawberry milkshakes of my life and wandered around near the floodwall. That night we slept like rocks.

  The next morning, we drove down Monument Avenue. My mother explained who each monument was (Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, Stonewall Jackson, J.E.B. Stuart, Matthew Fontaine Maury, and Arthur Ashe) and Merritt and I half listened, half watched the numerous shirtless guys jogging down the sidewalks.

  “Arthur Ashe and a bunch of old Confederate dudes? That sounds weird,” I observed.

  “It was a bit of a controversy, yes,” my mother turned to me. “Just think if they’d chosen a woman?” She winked.

  Our ultimate destination, and the main reason we had stopped in Richmond, was to visit the Museum of the Confederacy. When we whined about this earlier that morning, my parents had promised that if we tolerated it and behaved, they would take us to a local amusement park the next day. After checking the park out on its website, and seeing how many rollercoasters it had, we figured it was a fair trade.