Sophie paused as she neared it. It looked dark inside, but Evan was supposed to be working there. With a sense of trepidation, she knocked on the door. It moved inward. She realized that it was hanging open, and wind was gusting into the greenhouse. Something was very wrong.
“Evan?” She called, a tremor in her voice.
A single bulb in the back of the greenhouse lit the place. The flowers and plants looked eerie in the dim light, as if they might reach toward her at any moment and pin her to the spot.
“Evan?” All was quiet—too quiet.
“He’s not here,” said a scathing voice, a voice she recognized. Pain split her skull, and everything went black.
* * * *
“Why are you doing this?” Sophie asked. Her head throbbed with every word she spoke.
“You really don’t know?” Carla laughed. All softness was gone from her voice. Her face was even changed into a snarling, animal-like visage. The sweetness had been a front all along.
“No, you could have married John. I don’t understand any of this.” Sophie was stalling for time. She could look at Carla and tell she was mad, but she hoped someone would rescue her.
Evan lay on the ground, knocked out cold. He had apparently called her to have her come look at the flowers at Carla’s suggestion. Then, Carla had hit him over the head with the same thing she had used on Sophie. Sophie didn’t know what the object was, but it hurt.
“I didn’t want John. He was a means to get to his brother, but Evan, idiot that he is, rejected me.” She laughed. “I loved him, and I love this house. My mother worked here when I was a young child. She more than worked here. She was the mistress of Thaddeus Granger.”
“Oh my God,” Sophie said. “The woman who came between him and the boys’ mother?”
“Yes, exactly. And it came full circle with me. I seduced old Thaddeus, and I’m carrying his child. After you’re dead, he will marry me, and this house will be mine. I’ll make sure of it. I’ll kick every last Granger out the moment he dies. The beauty of it is that no one will know I killed you—or Evan. They’re going to think you both died in a terrible fire here while carrying on a lover’s tryst.” She laughed, her eyes rolling up in her head.
“No, you wouldn’t do that. John would be—”
“Devastated? Yes, he will be. He loves you, or he’s almost in love. He never loved me, so don’t worry. I was just here as a maid before I was the nanny and seemed like a good choice.” She rolled her eyes. “He’s weak. Marrying him was a most unsatisfying proposition for me. I wanted to get to the source after Evan rejected me—Thaddeus—and I did. He knows about the baby, and he knows who my mother is. I told him last night, and now, I think he’s afraid of me, but he doesn’t know the half of what I’m planning.” She giggled like a small child. The young woman was truly insane. “He probably thinks tomorrow will go off without a hitch, and the house and his legacy will be secured despite me and the baby.”
“Please, there’s another way—” Sophie hugged herself. She was so cold, and all she could think about was Maya in the crib alone. She would have no mother, just as she already had no father.
“Shut up.” Carla struck a match, her eyes glittering in the near darkness.
Sophie smelled the gasoline then. She had missed the acrid odor somehow before. Carla already had the place set to burn.
“No, no!” She cried.
“Oh, yes. Say goodbye to this world, Sophie,” Carla said.
Behind Carla, a shadowy figure flickered. Chills ran down Sophie’s spine. It couldn’t be. It made no rational sense, but it was her. It was Mona Granger, or her ghost. Carla suddenly screamed and fell backward. The lit match fell on top of her, and flames shot from her body.
Sophie gaped for only a moment. Then, she grabbed Evan and dragged him by the legs to the door, tears running down her face at the pain from her bruises and the effort.
He grunted, starting to stir. “What’s going on?” Evan mumbled, not fighting her.
“I’m sorry. We have to get out of here!” She managed to push and pull him out of the greenhouse door. Then, she rolled him down the slight slope as far as she could and ran behind him. She waited for an explosion, but it never came.
Somehow, Mona Granger, or what was left of her, had taken care of that detail, but Sophie had no doubt Carla was dead.
* * * *
Two weeks later, on a bright, cold day, John and Sophie walked down the short aisle of the Granger Chapel and gave themselves to each other as man and wife. The shadow of Carla’s misdeeds still hung over the wedding as did the sad death of the life she had carried inside of her, but the past was put to rest, finally. The coroner’s inquiry showed that Carla had died of a heart attack. Only the family knew that there was more to it than that when Sophie told them of seeing Mona Granger’s ghost. Thaddeus Granger admitted he had seen her too and that she had warned him of danger.
In a tearful reunion, father and sons had talked for many hours about Mona Granger’s death. It had been an accident, Thaddeus promised them, in tears. He had been nowhere near his wife when she had tumbled to her death. The man was bereft that they could have suspected differently. They believed him.
“The future is ours,” John said, smiling at Sophie as he took her hand at
