Blackbeard's Curse

Coming home was more like entering a small country estate in pre-First World War England. Except of course for the singing deer mounted on the wall in the den over a corner reading nook. Two of Anna’s friends, had joked that the only thing she was missing in the room was something dead on the wall. So Anna decided to make a “political statement,” as she put it, by hanging up a realistic looking young buck’s head that sang novelty Christmas songs with the push of a button and wrapping a scarf in the family’s hunting tartan around its neck. But she also needed constant reassurance that others could appreciate the end result as much as she did. “I thought you said you were ready?” They turned to find Clara Dare’s father standing in the door in a suit - a rare sight. Grant turned to Clara Dare, “Hey, Sweetheart! David! Good to see you! Nice to meet you, Vasek. I’m her daddy, Grant, and her mamma is about to make us late.” “I’m ready! Let’s go.” Anna rushed past Clara Dare and Vasek to the door. “Hurry. I’ll see you there. There were six-hundred people at the visitation reception, they’ve come from all over! The church will be packed, so park at Louise Morgan’s. I checked with her and its ok. It’s four o’clock; keep track of time!” Clara Dare couldn’t help but smile at her mother admonishing one current and one former billing attorney to keep track of time. “We’ll all greet properly when we get back.” And with that, Anna was gone. Clara Dare picked up her carry-on bag again. “Come on, y’all. The stairs are just through here.” She indicated the door on the far side of the room beside the massive built-in media cabinet that housed her father’s vast collection of old movies and TV series, particularly BritComs. She had often kidded him that he could start a network that rivaled TMC if he wanted to. He jokingly referred to it as his “nest egg” since he intended to do nothing but watch them all during his retirement, which would start next April–yes, he was counting, Clara Dare smiled to herself as she began to climb the stairs. * * * “So how does this work? Do we scowl at the mistress like in First Wives Club?” David joked as they crossed to the sidewalk in front of First Baptist Church, nestled on the corner of Bridges Street and Eighth Street, diagonally across from the First United Methodist Church, but otherwise surrounded by large, ambling, early twentieth century small-town residences representing a hodgepodge and blend of arts and crafts and American Victorian architecture. Both churches were in the traditional early twentieth century brick Federalist architecture, he noticed. The Methodist church had a pinkish brick exterior, and arched double-story stained-glass windows that looked like watercolors in creamy blues and pinks. The Baptist church looked suitably more rigid, David thought, with a dark-red brick exterior, and tall, narrow rectangular stained-glass windows in subdued primary colors depicting various biblical characters. Birches and live oaks lined Bridges Street on either side, creating a canopy over the road, broken only by two of the original religious centers of the town. “Maybe,” Clara Dare smiled back in a whisper. “Let’s see how it goes. Follow my lead,” she winked. “Look at all of these people!” Clara Dare exclaimed in a hushed voice to David and Vasek. “There must be three hundred people out here.” “Where are we supposed to meet your parents?” Vasek asked. “Mother didn’t say. But we are early. They’ll arrive with the hearse and it isn’t out front yet.” Clara Dare looked around; raising herself up on her toes to see past the crowd filling the lawn and large paved landing below the broad steps leading up to the sanctuary’s double doors. Largely strangers, she surmised. She assumed that they were people who must have known Jack through the Wreck Hunter dive center. Still, she recognized many faces among the people scattered around them who were engaged in conversations. “Oh good, there is Miss Jo!” Clara Dare told David. “Who’s Miss Jo?” David asked as they made their way through the crowd that had formed at the steps of the church to the opposite side of the building front. “She’s one of Mom and Aunt Eloise’s best friends. Her girls are Johnny and Tommy’s ages, older than us. She’s married to Stewart, the one who introduced SCUBA diving to Daddy and Uncle Jack when they were in high school. It was cutting edge technology and very rare back then. They had to build a lot of their own equipment.” “Clara Dare! Don’t you look beautiful! Thank goodness you made it!” Miss Jo looked ravishing in what Clara Dare was certain was an Armani ready-to-wear, black tailored wrap-dress. Her tastefully plunging neckline was accented by an elegant, but still large, diamond and pearl drop necklace and matching earrings. Clara Dare didn’t know how she did it, but at sixty-six, Miss Jo still looked like a fifty-year-old cougar with a size two figure that most women in their thirties would kill for and most men liked to admire. Clara Dare made a mental note to stop into Miss Jo’s dress shop, Josephine’s, on the Beaufort waterfront before they headed back to Atlanta. Beaufort, a quaint colonial port-town, was the oldest town in North Carolina, and connected to Morehead by two bridges joined by the tiny Radio Island, where the modern commercial port was located. Miss Jo’s shop always carried elegant and unique labels. Miss Jo hugged Clara Dare, then pulled away dramatically, laying her hand on David’s arm and swooning ever so slightly. “And is this David? Anna said you were a handsome young man, but she didn’t prepare me for the real thing! When I look at young men as pretty as you, it makes me wish I was forty years younger,” she confided with a flirtatious grin. David blushed, “Well thank you Miss Jo. And this is my brother, Vasek.” “So pleased to meet you. You poor thing, you must be exhausted being dragged up here after you just made a trans-Atlantic journey! Anna said you had never been to an American funeral before.” She paused and rested her hand on Vasek’s elbow. “Oh dear, how is your English?” She asked with sincere concern in her voice. “Am I going too fast? Anna said you were taking lessons.” “You’re fine. I hear better than I speak.” Vasek smiled shyly. “Good. But I talk fast. Tell me to slow down; Stewart has to all the time. At least it means he is still listening after forty-four years!” She laughed and Vasek joined her, blushing. “Anyway, you hit the mother lode with this funeral. You’ll have to pay close attention, but this is going to be a show for sure.” Miss Jo turned to Clara Dare. They were off to the side of the church and a line of mourners started to form down the path along the side of the church. “Does he know the whole story?” she asked Clara Dare. “Yes, I filled him in last night at dinner after he arrived. Even about the suspected affair with Ashley, the dive shop manager that he took up with after he moved out of Tiffany’s. There may very well be at least three women in this very church grieving for the loss of their consort!” Clara Dare quietly exclaimed in disbelief. “I wonder how the new preacher is going to handle it.” Miss Jo wriggled her nose in disgust. “It’s ridiculous, isn’t it? I overheard some of Johnny and Tommy’s friends at the visitation last night talking about the recent shuffle in Jack’s women. Tiffany was back in before he died.” Clara Dare asked, “But I thought one of Ashley’s friends let it out of the bag that Ashley and Jack had been seeing each other and that she was wearing an engagement ring?” Miss Jo nodded, “You probably got that from your mother through me. My source is a regular customer in my shop, and she could work for Interpol.”