under the canopy less solid and suffocating. Anna took in the afternoon air, feeling alive, fresh, renewed. Korban Manor and the mountains were bringing back her appetite, making her forget the long darkness that the cancer pushed her toward.
She took a right at the fork in the trail, remembering that Robert Frost poem about the road less traveled, because the right fork was little more than an animal path. But the trail led to an opening on a knoll, a soft rounded skull of earth wearing a cap of grass. In the middle of the opening stood a square section of iron fence, and white and gray gravestones protruded from the dirt within it.
'So this is where you keep your dead,' she said to the sky.
Anna made her way to the fence. She looked around, but the forest was still and silent. This wouldn't be the first cemetery she'd committed trespass against. She heaved herself over, gripping the wrought floral design and scrollwork of the fence to keep from spearing herself on the sharp-tipped ends.
Two large marble monuments, beautiful though worn with age, dominated the graveyard. The first read
EPHRAM ELIJAH KORBAN, 1859–1918. TOO SOON SUMMONED. The one beside it, slightly less ornate, said simply MARGARET. Anna knelt and pressed her palm to the soil above Ephram's final resting place.
'Anybody home, Miss Galloway?'
Anna looked up. Miss Mamie stood by the fence, somehow having crossed fifty feet of open field without Anna noticing.
'I was just out for a walk, and I got curious.'
'You know what they say about curiosity and the cat. Most of our guests respect fences.'
'Do you mean the guests who walk, or the ones who float?'
Miss Mamie's giggle echoed off the monuments. 'Ah, those ghost stories. I couldn't resist approving your application, you know. Paranormal researcher. That's too perfect.'
'It's just as much an art form as painting and writing. It's all about seeking, isn't it?'
'Clever. And just what are you seeking, Anna?'
'I suppose I'll know it when I find it.'
'One can only hope. Or perhaps you won't have to search. Perhaps it will find you.'
'Then you don't mind if I prowl in your graveyard?'
Miss Mamie looked at Korban's monument. 'Make yourself at home.'
'Thanks.'
'Don't be late for dinner, though. And be careful if you're caught out after dark.' Miss Mamie started to leave, then added. 'You're one of those, aren't you?'
'One of what?'
'What the mountain people around here call 'gifted.' Second Sight. The power to see things other people can't.'
'I'm not so special.'
'Those ghost stories are so delightful. And good for business, too. What artist who fancies himself living on the edge could possibly pass up an opportunity to come here? If you see anything, you'll tell me, won't you?'
'Cross my heart and hope to die.'
'Don't hope too hard. Not yet, anyway.'
Anna watched the woman cross the grass and enter the forest, then she headed toward the rest of the grave markers that stippled the slope. She explored them, reading the names. Hartley, Streater, Aldridge, McFall. Then the names gave way to simple flagstone markers, in some cases chunks of rough granite propped toward the heavens as a forlorn memento of a long-forgotten life.
Would her own death be so little noted? Would her mark be as insignificant? Did it even matter?
At the edge of the scattered stones, where the rear of the fence met the woods, a pale carved tombstone stood in the shade of an old cedar. Anna went to it, read RACHEL FAYE HARTLEY etched in the marble. An ornate bouquet of flowers was engraved above the name.
'Rachel Faye, Rachel Faye,' Anna said. 'Someone must have loved you.'
And though Rachel Faye Hartley was now dust, Anna envied her just a little.
Sylva watched from the forest until Miss Mamie left. Anna looked small and lost in the graveyard, talking to the stones, looking for ghosts among the blades of grass. The girl had the Sight, that much was plain. And something else was plain, that dark aura around her, hanging around her flesh like a rainbow of midnight.
Anna was fixing to die.
Sylva drew her shawl close together, holding it with one knotted hand. The other held her walking stick, which she leaned on to rest for the trip back to Beechy Gap. She didn't get out much these days, especially now that Korban's fetches were walking loose. Things were mighty stirred up, and part of that had to do with the coming blue moon.
The other part had to do with that girl in the graveyard, the one who stared a little too long at the grave of Rachel Faye Hartley.
'You'll be joining her soon enough,' Sylva whispered to the laurel thicket around her. 'If Ephram will let you, that is.'
The sun was sinking by the time Anna climbed back over the fence, full of vinegar for such a sick person. Anna didn't know the old ways, was weak in the power of charms and such. The girl wouldn't understand the power of the healing roots, bone powder, and special ways of spelling. But maybe the talent was only buried in her, not lost forever. Because blood ran thick, thicker than water. And magic ran through tunnels of the soul, Ephram always said.
But Ephram was a liar.
Both before and after he died.
A screech owl hooted, a sound as lonely as a night winter wind. Sign of death, for one to hoot during daylight. But lately signs of death were everywhere, coming at all hours. Sylva said a spell of safe passage and slipped into the woods, hurrying home as best she could before the sun kissed the edge of the mountains.
CHAPTER 11
'Honey?'
Spence pounded on the typewriter keys, pretending not to hear her.
'Jeff?' Bridget put a hand on his shoulder.
He stopped typing and looked up. 'You know not to bother me when I'm working.'
'But you didn't even come to bed last night.'
He hated the plaintive note in her voice, her eagerness to please. He despised her concern. Mostly, he was annoyed by the distraction.
'I hope the typewriter didn't keep you awake.' He didn't really care whether it had or not. He was making progress, chasing the elusive Muse, and that was all that mattered.
'No, it's not that,' Bridget said. 'You just need your rest.'
'There will be plenty of time for rest after I'm dead. But at the moment, I'm feeling particularly and effusively alive. So be a dear and let me continue.'
'But you missed lunch. That's not like you.'
Spence wondered if that was some kind of barb at his weight. But Bridget never criticized. She hadn't the imagination to attack with words. Spence was the reigning master of that genre.
'It's also unlike me to interrupt my work to have a little romantic chat,' he said, then stretched his vowels out in his Ashley Wilkes accent. 'Now, why don't ya'll make like Scahlett and get yosef gone with the wind?'
'Don't be mean, honey. I'm only trying to help. I want you to be happy. And I know you're only happy when you're working on something.'
'Then make me ecstatic,' he said. 'Leave.'
A small sob caught in Bridget's throat. Spence ignored it, already turning his attention back to the half- finished page and the thirty other pages stacked beside the Royal. He would do some revision, he knew, but it was excellent work. His best in many years. And he didn't want it to end.
