Chapter Text
May 1995
Natchez, Mississippi
.⋆♱.˚⊹. ࣪𓉸 ࣪⊹˚.♱⋆.
When I told Daddy I wanted tulips from the Netherlands, one hundred and fifty Baccarat champagne flutes, and Tiffany supper plates, I expected him to laugh in my face and tell me he wasn't shelling out sixty thousand dollars for the dinner that had been delayed for five years. But here I am, in the middle of the Dameron Hotel conservatory sipping from Italian crystal and staring at Dutch tulips wishing they would wilt and dry lifeless just like me.
I should be elated. Poe pulled every string imaginable to get me this custom eggshell slip dress—a truly bold undertaking for women like me with a "body like a summer garden" as he once told me.
My skin nearly crawled right off the bone when he said it. It usually does when he's kind. Which is always. Poe Dameron is the kindest man I've ever known.
My brow wrinkles, and I slide my hand beneath the table cloth, pinching my thigh discreetly. Red painted nails press cruelly into the tender flesh, a reminder of how unbecoming it is to resist my boyfriend's—well, I suppose now fiancé's—affections.
To be fair, I've spent five years asking for this and feeling betrayed when it failed to happen. I wanted Poe to ask, my parents to celebrate, the band from New Orleans to play while both families shook hands, and the rest of my life to begin moving without requiring another decision from me. Waiting has already cost me enough. Each time the proposal seemed near and then receded without reason, I had to choose this life all over again.
And that's the trouble. There are always two women inside me: the one who wants the ring, a mansion in New Orleans to fill with babies, a husband with more money than Daddy—and then there's the woman who looks at Poe's handsome face and wishes it were on a missing poster to spare the trouble.
And yet today I'm more like one of the heaps of flesh carted down to Miss Laird's mortuary on Union Street, blood drained, chest cleared, and prepared for public display.
"Charlotte?"
Poe's voice, rich and warm and of the bluff, filters through the din of the south's finest congregating and into my ear. His heat radiates through his pastel button-up onto my exposed shoulder.
I batter my brain and pivot toward my betrothed, round face softening, plump lips curling, big oud-colored eyes widening just enough to catch the spring light through the wavy glass ceiling. "Yes, honey bun?"
The corners of Poe's eyes crinkle, and he presses his lips together. His dark eyes dart down to where my thumb and index finger are still clamped around my skin. With no fuss, he reaches down, soft fingers wrapping around my wrist before slotting his fingers between mine.
"You're doing it again," he whispers, pressing the pad of his thumb into the soft meat between my bones. "Nervous, huh? That's why it's back." He presses my knuckles to his lips. "I ought to hold your hand forever then. Hold those nerves for you."
I beam like I'm supposed to. I kiss his hand back and stain his golden skin with my black cherry lip gloss. "You always take such good care of me." I lean back in the velvet chair and scan the room. Oil barons, governors, CEOs. I pull my bottom lip between my teeth, shaking my head. "It's just a lot of people. That's all."
Poe lets out a breath through his nose. "It is. But you know our parents..." He sighs then shifts his chair closer, thigh pressing against mine. "If it were me, I wouldn't even care about all this stuff. You know, your mom told me when you were a kid, you and Ben used to—"
I hear nothing after the name. My eyes, previously wandering over the sea of springtime pastel, halt like the nerves behind them have been severed. My lungs forget their function, and my blood, as cold as it already is, finds a way to subarctic. Suddenly, I'm transported back five years, to the tear soaked satin fabric on the red settee in my room, to the distinct smell of grave dirt burned in my nostrils as I gasped for breath between sobs, to the delusional month spent sitting at the end of the drive beneath the rotten willow.
You are a Saenger, I tell myself. You will not let wanting make you common.
And just like that, everything returns to its normally scheduled programming. Poe's voice zeroes back in my head as sensation returns to my nervous system.
"What was that, my darling?" I say, tilting my head and parting my lips that innocent way he loves.
He gives me a look, the look that says, That darn Charlotte, always zoning out.
Poe lets out a little laugh and bows his head. "I was just saying God made me the luckiest man alive to grow up right next door to you." He wiggles my hand, the one currently weighed down by the massive rock his grandfather bought from Harry Winston in the forties.
He thinks he's lucky. He thinks God, the masochist He is, finally wore me down after half a decade. He ignores the more practical explanation: the Damerons own Magnolia Trace, the strip of bluff my family spent nearly a century treating as ours. We buried our dead there and only learned after Granddaddy examined the old deeds that every grave sat on Dameron land. Once Poe and I marry, the parcel becomes ours together, and the Saenger dead return to Saenger hands.
But sure. He's the luckiest man alive.
I arrange myself in a way that conceals the repulsion low in my tummy and wiggle my shoulders. "Two months, honey. Just two more months."
Poe makes a sound from his chest, and nuzzles his mouth against my cheek. "And then I get to whisk you away to a three story Victorian in the Garden District and spend every day making sure you know just how loved—" He kisses my cheek. "How cherished—" He kisses my jaw. "And how utterly desired you are." He kisses my mouth.
I shiver. Poe takes the tremble to mean reciprocal desire.
That's fine. He's allowed to think that. The house in the Garden District is what I look forward to the most—my long awaited ticket out of Natchez. Far from the setting of every memory that makes up every thread of my sinew. The memories of him.
"Save it for the honeymoon, son," a voice I immediately recognize as my daddy's booms from behind me. Seconds later, his broad hand claps Poe on the shoulder, physically shaking him. "It's about time for you two to give your speeches. Y'all ready for that?"
Poe shapeshifts into his fresh businessman persona. "Yes, sir. Born ready."
Daddy says something about tradition calling for the bride to go first, but the interaction is cut short when Poe's dad, John, barrels across the room, face pinched and fists clenched.
"Gregory. Poe. We need to step into the office." John reaches in his pocket and puts out a folded cream colored paper. "We've got a problem."
Poe lifts his hands. "Right now, Dad? We're about to give our speeches."
"There may not be a wedding to give speeches for if we don't handle this now." John glances at me, face softening for the fragile maiden. "Charlotte, darling, let me borrow your beau. Go talk to Rey about the groom's cake."
I nod, agreeing to the ideal use of my limited female intellect, then wait until they disappear around the corner and follow.
Cotillion teaches many useful things, chief among them how to move quietly while men conduct business.
But John Dameron just said the magic words. There may not be a wedding. Music to my ears.
I slip past the garden-club wives, tell Miss Kimberly that Poe expects me, and reach the managerial office with no resistance. John has left the door open, almost as if he wants me listening.
I lean against the frame as he hands Daddy the folded paper. Poe looks over his shoulder, and the room falls silent. Ordinary disasters make Southern men loud. Real ones remind men who own too much land that they are made of meat like everyone else.
Daddy's face goes the color of paper. "What do you mean it was purchased?"
My fingers tighten around the doorframe.
"Exactly that," John says.
Daddy frowns. "But you assured me the title was clean."
John presses a hand to his forehead. "And it should've been."
"Should've?" Daddy lowers his voice. "Your attorneys have promised Magnolia Trace would be included once the children married."
Poe straightens. "Included how?"
John barely looks at him. "Transferred into the appropriate trust."
The answer satisfies no one, least of all Poe, but Daddy has already returned to the paper. "Who bought it?"
"A shell company filed the transfer this morning. My attorney caught it while preparing the documents."
"This morning?" Poe asks, brows knit.
John nods.
The world spins in a way I don't find unwelcome. This morning, Miss Dupree pinned my dress while Mama explained eggshell was softer than white so, therefore, less gauche. At the same hour, someone took Magnolia Trace out from under them.
A laugh bubbles so quickly I bite my lip to stop it.
Daddy shakes the paper. "How could anyone purchase land your family owns?"
"Apparently, we didn't own all of it. The cemetery parcel and east timberline were still tied to the old Laird succession. My grandfather thought he cleared the title in sixty-two."
Daddy scoffs. "Well, he thought wrong."
John's nostrils flare. "Your family buried people on land it never held a recorded right to use."
The truth lies between them: generations of Saengers beneath angels and cracked Hebrew inscriptions, all of them resting there by mistake.
Daddy steps closer. "My family has maintained that cemetery for nearly a century."
"And mine allowed it."
"Dad," Poe says.
John exhales through his nose. "The use was never challenged. Everyone understood what the land meant to the Saengers."
My throat burns, but something brighter spreads beneath it. If the Damerons cannot give us Magnolia Trace, Daddy has no reason to give them me. If the land is gone, the wedding is gone, and I'm—
I grip the frame harder.
Poe takes the paper. "Who bought it?"
"The purchaser is listed as a Kylo Ren."
"Who the hell is Kylo Ren?" Poe asks.
"CEO of First Order Energy in Dallas."
This is ruin, scandal, and precisely the sort of thing that sends Mama to bed behind a silk sleep mask. Yet my lungs fill properly for the first time all night. I could kiss this Kylo Ren on the mouth. I could send him a thank-you note.
Dear Mr. Ren, thank you for ruining my life in precisely the direction I prefer. Enclosed please find one Harry Winston engagement ring and the first genuine smile I have managed in five years.
Poe's voice cuts through my budding elation. "What does this mean for the agreement?"
John looks at Daddy before answering. The glance lasts only a moment, then Daddy lowers the paper and smooths the fold beneath his thumb.
"It means Magnolia Trace has become more difficult," he says.
Poe stares at him. "More difficult? That land was the point."
Daddy's eyes lift. "It was important."
John steps toward the desk. "No one is suggesting we ignore the problem. We identify the purchaser, determine what interest he has in the parcel, and make an offer."
"And if he refuses?" Poe asks.
"He won't," Daddy says.
The certainty in his voice feels misplaced, considering he hadn't heard the man's name five minutes ago.
Poe runs a hand across his jaw. "So we proceed as though this changes nothing?"
Daddy refolds the paper calmly. "We proceed as though a title dispute does not justify humiliating Charlotte in front of half the state."
John nods. "The speeches go forward. We handle the land tomorrow."
Poe looks between them, still dissatisfied. "You're both remarkably calm about this."
"I'm not calm," Daddy says. "I'm choosing not to turn a correctable problem into spectacle.".
My hope snags on theirs and begins to bleed out.
Poe glances toward the open office door, though I doubt he sees me. "And Charlotte?"
Daddy's face softens. "Charlotte's waited long enough for tonight. She doesn't need to know about any of this until we know whether there's anything worth upsetting her over."
John claps Poe once on the shoulder. "Your job is to go back in there and give your fiancée the evening she asked for."
Poe looks down at the deed. "Whoever this man is, he bought it today for a reason."
Daddy slips the paper into his inside pocket. "Then tomorrow morning we ask Mr. Kylo Ren what he thinks that reason is worth."
My hand slips from the doorframe before any of them can find me in the hall with my face split open and my heart hanging out.
When I return to the conservatory, I stand between the entrance and the party, lassoing in all of the unseemly, grotesque ways I want to lash out. I keep that little storm at bay.
I smooth my dress and lift my chin and walk back into my own public execution to spend the rest of the evening smiling with teeth.
.⋆♱.˚⊹. ࣪𓉸 ࣪⊹˚.♱⋆.⋆♱.˚⊹. ࣪𓉸 ࣪⊹˚.♱⋆.⋆♱.˚⊹. ࣪𓉸 ࣪⊹˚.♱⋆.⋆♱.˚⊹. ࣪𓉸 ࣪⊹˚.♱⋆.⋆♱.˚⊹. ࣪𓉸 ࣪⊹˚.♱⋆.
Poe's goodnight kiss was the kind a man just saved of death gives the woman dearest to him. He offered to take me back to his cottage at Dameron Pass, the two-story playhouse his parents bought him after college so he could practice independence within shouting distance of the main house. He wanted to celebrate with slow hands, careful kisses, and all the devotion women are meant to receive with wet eyes and open thighs.
I told him it was my monthly, and he believed me because Poe prefers believing me to knowing me, though I have apparently been bleeding for three weeks.
Instead, I'm in the cemetery on Magnolia Trace.
It lies below the house past the live oaks and crumbling brick wall, a wet black mouth crowded with marble teeth. I abandoned my shoes near the wrought-iron gate, so Mississippi mud closes around my bare feet as if recognizing its own. This is where I belong: satin damp with dew, skin tacky with humidity, hair swelling in the night air. Not in Poe's cottage, being adored toward another failed orgasm by a good man who has no idea where I live.
For three minutes tonight, Kylo Ren reached into my engagement dinner and stole the dowry off the altar. For three minutes, I loved a stranger cleanly and desperately.
Then Daddy buried me again.
I press my hands to my stomach and whisper, "You are a Saenger."
The proper Saengers lie beneath angels and slabs. I pass them for the unmarked grave at the cemetery's edge, beneath a magnolia whose roots have spent a century dragging the stone downward.
The grave is a low, nameless slab, split through the center and smoothe by rain and my own hands. Nobody knew precisely who lay beneath it. A criminal, supposedly—hanged, shot, or pulled swollen from the river with another man's silver in his pockets. The churches refused him, so my family took him.
I've always loved that, which was probably the first evidence of something wrong with me.
Mud soaks through my dress when I kneel. Mama would collapse at the sight. Daddy would say my name as though I dropped crystal at a governor's luncheon. Poe would lift me gently and explain he understands I become overwhelmed.
Ben would laugh. The thought strikes my sternum.
My fingers find the crack by memory. As a child, I believed the nameless man might press back if I pushed hard enough. Later, I stopped believing in ghosts and began believing in worse things, like wifehood and status.
My thumb catches in the moss, and the cemetery becomes summer.
I'm twenty and furious because Miss Dupree spent the afternoon lacing my debutante gown too tightly across my chest while discussing "support" and fuller figures requiring guidance. Ben found me here after supper. He always found me where I was least fit to be found.
He lay across the criminal's grave, black hair damp at his forehead, white shirt stained from work at the garage, an unlit cigarette stolen from Han's truck rested between his fingers because Ben preferred the appearance of sin to the taste.
"You're going to wrinkle," he said.
I looked down at the gown. "I hope I do."
"That'll show them." He huffed.
"Don't be ugly, Ben."
"You like me ugly."
"I like you useful."
His eyes moved over me with the insolence of a boy never trained to present himself for approval. "Then use me."
I hated him for it. I hated him because he meant it. He would let me point toward any wicked thing I wanted and follow as if desire alone made the road divine.
Five years later, my body still remembers the heat, the grave beneath my palm, his voice too near my skin for a boy forbidden to stand beside me in public.
My fingers slide on the stone.
I can't keep doing this—kneeling in mud in a ruined dress, wearing another man's ring while my body remembers what my life has sensibly buried. My nails find the soft skin inside my forearm and pinch until pain burns through the memory.
Desire doesn't matter. Desire is a fever, a vulgar little animal that eats from your hand until it decides to eat the hand.
I flatten my palm over the nameless grave and bow my head, hiding from the version of me who believed a stranger called Kylo Ren might've saved her.
I'm snapped back to my body when a boot sinks into the mud behind me. It must be Poe, following his difficult fiancée into the dark because he believes every wound can be kissed better.
"Please don't, Poe." My voice scrapes on the words. "I need a minute."
The silence lasts too long. Then a man speaks behind me.
"You're on my land, Lottie."
My body knows before I do. My heart drops through my ribs and into the mud among all the obedient bones.
I turn.
He stands beyond the magnolia where the shadows cluster, dressed in black and taller than memory. Five years have broadened him and cut every trace of softness from his face.
But the mouth is Ben Solo's.
He looks down at me kneeling on the nameless grave, engagement ring flashing between us. The cemetery darkens even more, and I think distantly that Mama will murder me over the dress.
Then my cheek strikes wet stone, and everything goes black.