The Guests on South Battery Read Online Free Page A

room, someone I couldn’t see and could barely feel. Not even a shadow, or a shimmer of light. I could tell that whoever it was
wanted
me to see them, but something was preventing me. I could almost see a curtain that had been pulled across my sixth sense, forcing me to use only the five senses everybody else had.
    I sat down suddenly, confused and irritated.
I
wanted to call the shots regarding my inherited ability or disability—depending on how I was feeling about it at any given time—and something I couldn’t understand was blocking me. I recalled how during my pregnancy my ability to see dead people had disappeared and how I’d found myself oddly missing it. I couldn’t help wondering whether motherhood had somehow had the same effect. Maybe that was the reason I’d been undisturbed for so long. Maybe.
    Jayne returned to her seat and smiled, but there was something different about her expression. Like a painting where the artist was still a few brushstrokes away from completion. “I’m looking for a Realtor. And when I was walking by the agency this morning, I felt compelled to stop. I saw your photo in the window and you looked . . .”
    She paused, not sure I wanted to hear what she had to say. I was notoriously unphotogenic, as my driver’s license photo could attest. I had visions of it pinned to a bulletin board in the DMV’s break room as an example of their best work.
    â€œApproachable,” she finished. “Like you’d understand what it was I needed.”
    Feeling pleased and not a little relieved, I pulled out a notepad and pencil and regarded her. “So, what can I help you with?”
    â€œI need to sell a house. And buy a new one.”
    â€œI only work in Charleston. So if you have a house in Birmingham to sell . . .”
    She shook her head. “I’ve inherited a house, here in Charleston. It’s an old house—I’ve walked by it a few times. I want to sell it and buy a new one.”
    I sat back, not completely understanding. “Have you been inside the house?”
    â€œNo. I don’t need to. I don’t like old houses as a rule, so there’s no reason for me to go inside.”
    I stared at her. “You don’t like old houses?”
    â€œI don’t like all that . . . history in a place. I want something fresh and new. Lots of metal and glass and stone.”
    â€œI see,” I said, jotting down notes. I did see. I’d said those exact same words when I first inherited my house on Tradd Street and had said them often since, the most recent this very morning as I’d turned my back on my sunken garden and headed toward my car. “Where is your house located?”
    â€œOn South Battery Street. Right near the corner of Legare—the big white house with the portico and columns.”
    I thought for a moment. “The old Pinckney house?” I knew it, of course. I was on a first-name basis with just about every old house in Charleston either through a family connection or from my job as a Realtor specializing in historic real estate. “Button Pinckney was an acquaintance of my mine—a lovely woman. Was she a close relative?”
    Jayne looked down at her hands as if embarrassed. “Actually, I’d never met her. And I didn’t know until now that Caroline Pinckney had a nickname. I didn’t even know of her existence until three weeks ago when her lawyers contacted me to let me know I’d inherited her estate.”
    Déjà vu. I had a flash of memory of me sitting in a lawyer’s office not far from here as a lawyer explained to me that Nevin Vanderhorst, a man I’d met just once, had left me his crumbling house on Tradd Street that I neither wanted nor needed.
    I was clenching the pencil so tightly that I had to place it on the pad of paper. I forced a smile. “Miss Pinckney was a friend of both my mother’s and