Temple Secrets: Southern Humorous Fiction: (New for 2015) For Lovers of Southern Authors and Southern Novels by Susan Gabriel

cackle that makes Rose laugh. There was a lot of laughter in her childhood. She has missed that, too.
    “I’m sure it’s not the way Mother would have wanted to go,” Rose says, serious again.
    Queenie agrees. “To lose all control must be killing her.” She lifts an eyebrow at her choice of words. “You know how much your mother likes to be in charge,” she adds.
    “That’s the understatement of the century,” Rose says, putting her purse on the kitchen table.
    “Perhaps the millennium,” Violet says.
    They pause, as if each realizes how much Rose’s mother would disapprove.
    “They’re bringing Iris home this afternoon,” Queenie says. “Her wishes were to die here, and it would be just like Iris to haunt me after she’s gone if I don’t follow her requests to the letter.”
    “The famous Temple deathbed requests,” Rose says. “I’d forgotten about those.”
    “She wouldn’t be the first apparition to live here,” Violet says. She glances up like she’s listening for confirmation.
    Queenie clucks her agreement.
    “I can’t say that I’ve missed the ghosts,” Rose says. “There’s nothing quite like seeing your dead great-grandfather in the garden on your way to school. Of course, he seemed harmless enough, but it was always a little startling when he first showed up.”
    “He’s the one with the surgeon’s bag, right?” Violet asks. “He’s always out by the oak tree.”
    “He was a doctor during the Civil War,” Rose says. “When my mother was a little girl he was very old and told her stories about the war. He said he had sawed off more limbs than all the limbs on that live oak in the garden.”
    “That’s why Iris refused to go near that old tree,” Queenie says. “She told me once that she always imagined amputated arms and legs dangling from its limbs.”
    It occurs to Rose that only in Savannah would the first real conversation she’s had in twenty-five years include an update on the Temple ghosts. From Rose’s experience, sometimes the living can be scarier than the dead. In a way, her mother has haunted Rose her entire life.
    It’s also been years since Rose thought of curses and spells and the magical Gullah arts. When she was a girl, Old Sally told her stories that intrigued her, about how Old Sally’s grandmother was a slave owned by the Temples, as was her mother before her. Old Sally’s mother was the first woman in her family born free and she was very proud of that fact.
    Rose has never told anyone that her ancestors owned slaves. Not even Max. It is Rose’s secret. Growing up, she related much more to being owned than to being an owner. Sometimes she still feels like she’s waiting to be liberated. Maybe that’s part of the reason she’s here.
    “You look like you’re a million miles away,” Violet says.
    “I was.” Rose turns to look at her and Queenie. “I was remembering that time when I was six and I covered myself with mud from the garden to darken my skin.”
    Queenie laughs. “You wanted to be black like me and Mama,” she says.
    “I thought you were magical,” Rose begins. “Old Sally knew all these Gullah potions and spells, and you had these deep roots that extended all the way back to Africa,” Rose says.
    “I’ll never forget the look on Mama’s face when you showed up in the kitchen,” Queenie says. “She laughed until tears came and was still laughing when she put you in the bathtub. Remember that?”
    “She was always so patient with me,” Rose says, thinking of how much she looks forward to seeing Old Sally again. But first she needs to play the dutiful daughter for one last time.
     

CHAPTER SIX
    Violet
     
    Miss Temple would not like that Rose is back home, standing in her kitchen, which makes no sense to Violet given how kind Rose is. Violet remembers why she and Rose were friends now. Unlike some in Savannah, she doesn’t see color as a reason to reject someone.
    “Have you told Rose about our latest drama in