Kingsley Crossing

Patricia gazed with exhilaration at the Greek Revival mansion before her. Its austere ivory columns seemed to drain the color from the blue sky as they stood guard over the portico. At the portico’s center, an oak doorway was flanked by rocking chairs swaying in the summer breeze, as if their occupants had only recently wandered away. “I made it, Charlaine,” she whispered. The sweltering noonday sun beat upon her back. She took shelter under a magnolia tree, its overripe pods dangling like rotting fingers. Patricia smiled. “No wonder you fell in love here.”

Before the tour, a Petri dish of middle-class white Americana gathered, their name tags proudly displayed. There was Diane, a mousy-haired middle-aged woman boasting a Charlaine Kingsley T-shirt and a fanny pack embroidered with a rose; a fresh-faced couple, Dylan and Sara Ann, who couldn’t keep their hands off each other; and a man who looked to be in his early seventies, Stanley, wearing a baseball cap embroidered with A Rose in the Thorn Garden. Patricia kept to herself, clutching her worn paperback of Petals on the Plantation.

“Oh my lord! Is that an original copy?” asked Diane.

“Yes,” Patricia softly answered. “Don’t worry dear, we don’t bite! Me and Stanley have been on this tour six times! Always on her majesty’s birthday. We’re lifers, ain’t that right Stanley!” Stanley nodded eagerly. “Now where’s Miss Lily Mae?”

As if on cue, a stern woman in a monochrome pantsuit appeared out of thin air. “Lily Mae! Did ya miss me?” Diane asked eagerly. “Diane, how lovely to see you…again. Stanley, of course. And I see we have a few new faces.” The young lovebirds paused from fondling each other to acknowledge the tour guide’s presence. “We’re planning on getting hitched on the plantation, Miss Mae. We couldn’t care less about that sappy romance author who kicked the bucket here,” Sara Ann said with a shrug.

“Lily Mae, please. That ‘sappy’ romance author is the only reason the State of Tennessee purchased this property,” Lily Mae replied.

“We’re sure glad they did,” Dylan said with a grin. Lily Mae cocked an eyebrow. “Let’s begin.”

The group followed her up the limestone steps.

“Welcome to Kingsley Crossing, home of acclaimed novelist Charlaine Kingsley, who lived on these grounds until her untimely death in 1977. Charlaine’s great-great-great-grandfather, William Kingsley, bought the land in 1820. Construction of the mansion was completed in 1846. Its facade was used in the opening scene of the made-for-TV movie Dew on the Dogwood Tree, based on Kingsley’s 1974 blockbuster novel.

“The carved doorframe depicts the myth of Persephone. On the left, she is seen frolicking in her garden, complete with Tennessee staples—magnolias, crape myrtles, and azaleas. On the right, Persephone devours the seeds of a pomegranate. In the bottom panel, she appears trapped within the depths of hell for all eternity.

“The craftsman modeled Persephone’s face after William’s first wife, Gwendolyn.”

Diane snapped a photo of Gwendolyn’s mangled expression. “You never told us that before! Would you look at that, Stanley! Her mouth’s gaping like your mama looking at a Sunday ham!”

As they entered the house, Patricia met the striking eyes of an ebony-haired woman in a portrait—her scornful gaze cast upon a raven-haired mare framed on the opposite wall.

“This room is called the Gwendolyn Foyer, in honor of William’s true loves—his first wife, who perished during childbirth, and the family’s famed horse, named for Gwendolyn after her death. William’s second wife, Caroline, is not pictured here—or in any room, for that matter. Caroline, the girlish stepmother to William's children, spent countless hours here communing with the portraits until it drove her mad. She was later found drowned in the stable well. If you’d like to pose for a selfie at Caroline’s suicide backdrop, the location is starred on your map.”

“Gross!” Sara Ann cried. “I don’t want any stable muck on my new boots!”

“Like the rest of the tour, the stable portion is optional,” Lily Mae said briskly. “To your left is the Dining Room. Supper is served nightly at 7 p.m.”

Patricia leaned over the stanchions to survey the elaborate table setting—rose-colored glassware, blue and white china, round-backed mahogany chairs with horsehair cushions—overseen by a gravely serious, whiskered gentleman in a portrait above the head of the table.

“I thought nobody lived here anymore,” Dylan said. “I’m not lookin’ to share my wedding night with some cranky old Kingsley kooks.”

“Supper is not to be disturbed,” Lily Mae said. “Follow me into the Parlor.”

“Here the family entertained politicians, tycoons, and celebrities. Adeline Kingsley, Charlaine’s great-grandmother, redecorated the Parlor in the fashionable Gothic Revival style in the late 1880s. She adored local wildlife—delighting in setting makeshift traps. Once caught, toyed with, and starved, she used the critter carcasses to create whimsical décor displayed throughout the house: lampshades fashioned from rabbit skin, wall motifs made by pressing fox eyeballs into wet plaster, and the chess table—its feet are real horse hooves.”

“A chess table with horse hooves! My opponents already run away with the game!” Stanley exclaimed. Everyone laughed except for Lily Mae. “He tells that joke every time,” she murmured to Patricia.

“The fireplace was crafted with marble imported from Knoxville. Against its backdrop, seven-year-old Charlaine watched her father fatally impale her uncle Arthur with a fireplace poker during a drunken brawl over a bridge game. Those two were always horsing around.”

“If you look closely, you can still see specks of Artie’s blood on the hearth.”

“The blood accents look so pretty against the pink marble! Oooh—honey—can you picture it?” Sara Ann gushed. “My bridesmaids in blush dresses with red camellias!”

“Whatever you say, babe, your daddy’s paying!” Dylan replied as he playfully swatted her butt.

Lily Mae frowned. “Moving on.”

Around the corner, the narrow kitchen was bubbling with preparations for an extravagant meal. On a long wooden table, patted dough and a dozen cut biscuits sat atop a dusting of flour. Beside the biscuits rested a headless, unplucked hen. Patricia watched it twitch before a doily-aproned elderly woman caught her attention.

“What a treat this is—folks, this is my grandmother, Miss Hannah Walker,” Lily Mae said.

“Holy cow! Hannah Walker! That’s the name of the cook from Petals on the Plantation!” Diane blurted out.

“That’s right, off the page and in the flesh!” Hannah beamed.

“Did you know Charlaine?” Patricia asked.

“Know Charlaine? Charlaine knew me! I’ve lived here my whole life. The Walker family goes back generations on this farm. My grandparents were enslaved on this plantation. They remained here after emancipation—they didn’t have a choice! My mother was born here. She lived with her parents in a cabin converted from slave quarters until—“

Hannah’s voice trailed off, returning her attention to a pot as it threatened to boil over.

“Until what?” Sara Ann asked.

“Until the fire. James II, Charlaine’s great-grandfather—that rascal couldn’t keep his hands off those matches!”

“And they say kids these days are punks!” Dylan chuckled.

“My mother was eight. She moved into the mansion after that.”

“Stop boring them, Grandma. You’ve got a meal to prepare.”

As the group shuffled out of the kitchen, Hannah raised a butcher knife and brought it down on the chicken with a bone-crunching crack.

“From the Rear Porch you can see the Garden, which served as inspiration for Charlaine’s classic love story, A Rose in the Thorn Garden. Spoiler alert—the triumphant climax of the novel occurs when the heroine’s father bludgeons her suitor to death with a cherub fountain spout, based on the one from the center of the garden. Charlaine spent her childhood summers playing in the yard with her cousins, Peter and James. Cora, their sister, never went outside. She preferred to watch the trio play from her bedroom.” Lily Mae pointed to a small upstairs window. “Of course, after their father Arthur died, his family was banished from the homestead. Shall we proceed?”

Lily Mae led the group inside and up the back staircase.

“This is my favorite part!” Diane whispered to Patricia.

“This was Charlaine’s bedroom,” Lily Mae said. “It’s the only room in the house we allow guests to interact with. Feel free to look around.”

The room was decorated with pink wallpaper patterned with roses and trimmed with lace. A canopy bed, adorned with frilly curtains pulled back to reveal a cadre of stuffed animals, occupied nearly half the room. Across it sat a Hitchcock chair engraved with Corrington Kingsley, placed as if it were guarding the bed.

Sara Ann posed coyly on the bed with a stuffed horse as Dylan did a photo shoot. Patricia went over to Charlaine’s desk and ran her fingers over it. Sharp gouges marred its surface. A letter opener was stabbed into the grain. Papers, shredded to pieces, were strewn about the desk and the floor.

Sara Ann walked over. “Is this where she wrote her fourth novel? I heard it was a total flop!”

“There was no fourth novel,” Lily Mae said. “Enough exploring. Let’s get on with it.”

The group walked down the hall past an open doorway.

“Oh, I almost forgot. Feeding time.”

The doorway was roped off. Behind it sat a frail woman, confined to a tiny wheelchair.

“Everyone, say hello to Cora.”

“Hi Cora!” the group replied.

Cora groaned.

“She can’t speak. Cora was afflicted with polio as a child. Her speech has been minimal ever since. When her brothers fled the homestead, they left her behind. No one noticed she was still here until the caretaker came in to convert her room to storage. She had survived for three days, licking wallpaper paste for sustenance. In adulthood she became paralyzed from the neck down. We keep her as part of the exhibit.”

Lily Mae produced a jar of baby food from her jacket pocket. She spooned out a portion and pushed it toward Cora’s mouth.

Cora turned her head away.

“Fine,” Lily Mae said. “Starve for all I care.”

She addressed the group and clapped her hands together.

“That completes the inside portion of the tour.”

The group walked down the grand staircase and out the front door, the Gwendolyns eyeing them as they exited.

“Thank you for visiting Kingsley Crossing. Feel free to walk the grounds. Be sure to swing by the family gravesite. See you again next year,” Lily Mae walked back into the house. The rest of the party dispersed, leaving Patricia alone, still clutching her book.

She wandered until she found the family graves beneath a weeping willow. She knelt before Charlaine’s headstone, inscribed with the epitaph:

The house held her secrets.

She gave her name in return.

“Happy birthday, Charlaine.”

A skeletal hand sprung forth from the dirt, worms and beetles weaving through the rotten earth caked to its bony knuckles. Patricia handed Charlaine a pen.

“Please... will you sign my book?”

*Note: This story satirizes plantation and mansion tours that grossly minimize the atrocities suffered by enslaved people, people with mental illness, people with disabilities—those who are overlooked to propagandize the prestige of so-called “historical treasures.” I drew inspiration from tours of Belle Meade and The Hermitage plantations in Tennessee, and the Lemp Mansion in Saint Louis.