Will of Wisteria

Chapter One The streets of downtown Charleston were deserted, almost silent except for the redundant racket of the occasional cicada. Dim street lamps hummed overhead, and the humidity of the August night wrapped everything in its thick presence. Elizabeth Wilcott's feet held to the steady rhythm as her running shoes connected with pavement still soft from the heat of the day. Her ponytail slapped against the back of her wet T-shirt, keeping time with her pace. Elizabeth liked to run at night; that way she wasn't limited to sidewalks. She didn't like limitations. At night she could run in the middle of the street without the nuisance of vehicles or horse-drawn carriages or camera-laden, plaid-shorts-wearing tourists. Besides, no woman had ever been more determined to silence her demons, and fighting the ones that lurked in dark places was a commitment she had made to herself years ago. At least that's what she thought running at night proved. Her mind pounded with the rhythm of her feet. Tomorrow. The reading of the will. Her father, Clayton Wilcott, dead. She was an orphan. Siblings didn't count--not hers anyway. She was alone. Yet her father's death also brought with it another redefining for her. His fortune. For her entire thirty-three years, his money had sifted to her through his fingers. Soon her own fingers would determine how it would filter into her world. Elizabeth envisioned her inheritance, saw it piling up in places predetermined by her alone. From such a position of power she could control everything around her. She had known influence and success as a commercial real estate lawyer. But more satisfying than that was the respect that followed her, and she had done it all without plastering her face on a billboard or a television commercial. The real estate market in Charleston was strong--the second largest industry in the city, next to tourism. She didn't suffer for work. The money was good, the authority satisfying. But money like her father had--well, money like that could accomplish almost anything. Yet still something nagged at her. A premonition, maybe. A pressure in her gut every time she thought about tomorrow. She had felt it since the funeral a week ago. The foreboding feeling that somehow, as good as it all sounded, it might not turn out the way she expected. And in the thickness of the hot, salty darkness she almost felt as if she were wearing the uneasiness. She tried to shake off her pessimism--a futile effort. She had been shaking at it for years, and still it clung to her like the sweat hanging on her brow. She wiped the sweat away with the sleeve of her T-shirt, her own salt mixing with the brine from the harbor air. The shirt clung to her chest and stuck to her back. Elizabeth stopped running and slowed her pace for a cool-down walk. She paced along the narrow pathways of what the Charleston guide books called White Point Gardens, but to the locals it was the Battery. Her breathing steadied as she let the familiarity of the city she loved soothe her anxiousness. She walked through the Williams Music Pavilion, erected in the center of the historic space. Tourists flocked here during the day to hear its history, both real and make-believe. Tour guides loved to add their own local flavor to their narratives, and some of the stories had been repeated so often they had become part of the city's history, as real as the water bugs that scurried on sidewalks or lurked in bedrooms. During the day many of the natives sat on their porches offering warm smiles and innate hospitality--and sometimes a glass of sweet tea--to passing tourists who had come to take a peek into their gardens. Later in the evening, when the tourists had wandered off to find some "taste of Charleston" or returned to their bed-and-breakfasts, the locals would come out to tend their immaculate garden courtyards and reclaHildreth, Denise is the author of 'Will of Wisteria ', published 2007 under ISBN 9781595542090 and ISBN 1595542094.