Garden of the Moon (9 page)

Panic filled her. This couldn’t be happening. She must remain here with Jonathan where she was safe and loved. As she reached for Jonathan, his image blurred, the edges grew fuzzy, and he began to fade.

Before she could call out, she was once more sucked up in the vortex of swirling colors.

***

Sara awoke to find herself sitting in the chair by the window, the locket still clutched in her hand and the diary lying open in her lap. Once more, she was Sara Wade. The spirit of Maddy Grayson had remained in the past with Jonathan. Sara’s heart ached with an inexplicable emptiness.

What had happened? Had Katherine discovered them? Seen them embracing? Kissing? Had she, after seeing them and realizing they loved each other, given Jonathan up? No. Clarice had said someone…the jealous man…killed Jonathan, and Maddy had never married

The intense despondency that overcame her was like a knife being plunged into her heart. Her very soul cried out for Jonathan. Trying to make sense of this intense sorrow she felt for the loss of a man she’d never known, Sara turned to his portrait.

She gasped. Both Jonathan’s and Maddy’s paintings were gone. Katherine Grayson’s portrait leered down at Sara. The satisfaction in Maddy’s sister’s painted smile was unmistakable. She’d won again.

With tears burning her eyes and too exhausted both mentally and physically to care that the paintings had been switched, Sara collapsed onto her bed. Not even when her beloved Gran died had she felt so wretched, so lost and so very, very alone.

***

Faced with the smirking painting the next morning, Sara called Raina to her bedroom. She had no idea how the painting had been returned to its spot over the mantel, but it had to go. It might be just the dream she’d had the night before of Maddy meeting Jonathan in the garden or the childhood memories of her dislike of the portrait, but whatever it was, she could not stand another moment of that woman’s likeness hanging on her bedroom wall.

“You wants me, Miss Sara?”

“Who changed the paintings over the mantel?” She pointed at the portrait of Katherine Grayson.

Raina stared at it, looking as puzzled as Sara had been the night before. “Don’t know. Far as I know, nobody touched it.”

This was just insane. Someone had to have changed those paintings. “Please have Samuel change them back. I don’t want that woman’s picture in here.”

“Yes, Ma’am, right away.” Raina threw her a quizzical glance, and then backed out of the room.

Sara frowned. What made her say that just that way?

That woman
.

Not really understanding why, she felt an even stronger, deep-seated dislike for Katherine than she’d felt yesterday. It had to be connected somehow to Jonathan and Maddy. Had Maddy hated Katherine so much that the feeling had been transferred to her? She laughed. Now that was really insane. How could a dead person transfer anything to the living? She’d had enough interaction with the dead that if someone was going to make her feel things she wouldn’t ordinarily feel, it would have happened long ago.

But hadn’t Jonathan made her fell things she’d never experienced for a man in her life? If he could do it, why not Maddy’s spirit?

Her head swimming with unanswered questions and the remnants of a very real dream torturing her thoughts, Sara waited until Samuel switched the paintings.

“What you want me to do with dis?” Samuel held up the painting of Katherine.

“Burn it,” Sara said.

Moments later, Sara watched out the window as Samuel laid the portrait atop a pile of burning brush. Not until the flames had consumed the entire thing, canvas, frame and all, did she move away from the window. At last, Katherine Grayson’s likeness was gone for good.

***

“Did you sleep well?” Julie motioned for Raina to add another sausage patty to her already overburdened breakfast plate. She wondered absently if the hunger of the last few months, when she was living hand-to-mouth, would ever be assuaged. When Sara didn’t answer her, her attention was pulled away from the delicious looking breakfast awaiting her. She looked at her friend. “Sara?”

Sara started as if being roused from deep thought. “Oh, I’m sorry. Yes…yes, I slept very well, and you?” She picked up her fork and began moving the food randomly around her plate.

Julie frowned. Sara didn’t look as though she’d slept well. Faint bluish circles ringed her eyes. Her complexion had all the color of a northern winter. And as she reached for her coffee cup, her hand trembled slightly.

Covering Sara’s hand with her own, Julie squeezed it lightly. “Have you forgotten? I’m your best friend. I know when you’re lying.”

Sara dropped her hand to the table and curled her hand into a fist. Her fingernails dug scars in the linen tablecloth. She gave a small nervous laugh. “I guess I’m no better at deceiving you now than I was at school.” She glanced at Julie through a fringe of chestnut lashes. “No, I didn’t sleep well. As a matter of fact, I had a most disturbing dream.”

After pushing back her plate, Julie leaned her forearms on the table, ready to listen. Sara glanced at her then quickly averted her gaze again, the gesture telling Julie of her friend’s reluctance to talk about this dream.

“Well, tell me about the dream.”

“You’ll think me crazy,” Sara finally said.

Julie laughed and patted Sara’s arm. “You talk to dead people. If I were going to think you’re crazy, wouldn’t I have done it long ago?”

To Julie’s relief, Sara actually laughed. Swallowing hard, she related the dream she’d had the night before. “When I woke up last night, the paintings of Maddy and Jonathan were gone, and Katherine’s was back over the mantel.”

“It was just a dream, Sara. Nothing more. We all have them.”

“No, I don’t think so. I think it had something to do with what Gran told me.”

“Sara,” Julie said, leaning back in her chair and repositioning her plate, “I think you’re so desperate to solve this mystery that you’re forcing yourself to see things when there’s a perfectly logical explanation for it. Your grandmother’s warning and what took place last night were just dreams.”

Sara shrugged, but she didn’t look convinced. “Perhaps you’re right. I’m probably making a lot out of nothing.” For a few moments, she went back to rearranging her breakfast plate. Then she frowned. “But how do you explain the switched paintings?”

Julie swallowed a mouthful of pancake. “Paintings don’t just hang themselves. One of the servants did it. That’s the only logical answer.”

“But I asked Raina, and she said no one had touched them.”

Julie laughed again and added another generous dollop of butter and a splash of maple syrup to her pancakes. “It wouldn’t be the first time a servant lied to stay out of trouble.”

Sara huffed with obvious indignation. Straightening her shoulders, she glared at Julie. “Raina has never lied to me.”

Julie cocked an eyebrow. “That you’re aware of.”

***

After breakfast, Julie hustled Sara back to her room to rest. Even though Sara protested that she had plantation business to see to, Julie would hear none of it. “I ran my father’s plantation for a long time. I think I can be trusted for one day to see to your duties without your supervision. Now, get into bed and sleep and forget about Harrogate for a while.”

For once, Harrogate was the farthest thing from Sara’s mind. Allowing Julie to take over her duties was easy because it gave Sara the opportunity to work on solving the puzzle of the dream without interruption.

As she settled herself in the chair beneath her bedroom window, her dream of the night before claimed her attention to the exclusion of everything else.

But was it a dream? Everything—Jonathan’s arms, his kiss, the balmy evening breeze, the scent of the flowers—had all seemed so very real at the time. Now, she had her doubts.

“Be sensible, Sara,” she chided out loud, “you can’t go back into the past. What else could it have been but a very vivid, very realistic dream?”

What else indeed?

She picked up Maddy’s diary and for a moment ran her fingertips over the gold embossed letters of the woman’s name. When, as Maddy, she’d been sheltered in Jonathan’s arms, she’d felt so safe, so cherished. It had been unlike anything she’d ever experienced before. How lucky Maddy had been to know the kind of love Jonathan had given her. If only—

Stop it, Sara
!
You’re letting your fanciful imagination get away from you
.

Opening the book, she began to read from where she’d stopped the night before. To her amazement, Maddy’s recounting of what had taken place in the garden matched Sara’s dream exactly, right down to the words of love that Jonathan had spoken and the promise to ask Katherine to release him from their betrothal.

How could that be? There was only one explanation. Sara must have read it before she fell asleep and then she’d dreamed it exactly. But when she’d awaken, the diary had been open to the same spot where she had left off before she’d gotten so dizzy and drifted into…What had she drifted into? But she hadn’t just drifted off. There had been that terrible spinning, the nausea, the colors.

Her head began to throb. Covering her eyes with her hand to shut out the blazing sunlight streaming through the window, she laid her head back and sighed. Would she ever find the peace at Harrogate that she’d so longed for and had expected when she came here?

“Miss Sara?”

Turning toward the voice, she found Raina standing in the doorway holding a small silver tray. On the tray was a glass of milk.

“Yes?”

Raina came to her side. “Miss Julie told me you was feelin’ poorly. She said to bring you a glass of warm milk, and to stay right here ‘til you drinks it.” She extended the tray toward Sara.

Sara stared at the glass, but made no move to take it. She hated warm milk and had never quite figured out what medicinal benefits a cow could put into it that would endow heated milk with a cure-all for everything from gout to hysterics.

“No thank you, Raina. I’m just fine. I don’t need any milk.”

Raina’s mouth set in a stubborn line. “Miss Julie says she’ll have my hide if you don’t drink da milk.”

Sara had to laugh. Julie didn’t have a mean bone in her body. The threat, undoubtedly, was as empty as a used up tub of lard. Nevertheless, Sara decided that it might help to ease the throbbing in her temples. Shrugging, she took the glass and drank until the milk was gone. Setting the glass back on the tray with a loud
thunk
, she made a face and then smiled up at Raina.

“There. Are you both happy now?”

Raina grinned, her white teeth glowing against her chocolate skin. “Yas’um.” She made no move to leave.

“Is there something else, Raina?”

Raina nodded. Her
tignon
wobbled and slipped over her forehead. With her free hand, she pushed the bright green turban back in place. “Miss Julie says I’s to tuck you in for a nap.”

Sara stood and frowned at her maid. Being treated like a child raised Sara’s hackles. It reminded her vividly of her mother. She made a mental note to talk to Julie about it at lunch.

“You know better than anyone that I haven’t been tucked in for a good many years, Raina. I’m sure I can manage a nap without your help.” She made her way to the bed and stretched out on it. “See?”

“Yass’um.” Raina, failing miserably at hiding her satisfied grin, left the room.

To Sara’s surprise, her eyelids quickly grew heavy, and she began to drift off. Just before her eyes closed, she heard the echo of a woman’s mocking laughter.

Chapter 7

Sara bolted upright in bed. All sleepiness vanished from her body. Immediately, Sara’s gaze shot to the mantel. Expecting to see Katherine’s portrait there again, she sighed in relief when she saw that Jonathan and Maddy’s portraits hung exactly where Samuel had placed them. How foolish of her. She’d watch Samuel burn the painting. How could it possibly be there now?

The woman’s laughter again drifted over the still air.

“Raina? Is that you?”

No reply.

“Julie?”

Still no reply.

Was this someone’s idea of a tasteless joke because she’d ordered Katherine’s portrait burned? That was impossible. The only one that knew about her hatred of the portrait was Julie and Raina and neither of them would be cruel enough to do something like this.

Then a thought occurred to her. Maybe…and her blood turned icy cold at the thought…Could it be Katherine’s spirit laughing at Sara’s fanciful daydreams of Jonathan? Could Maddy’s sister be expressing her delight at winning again by seeing to it that Jonathan could never be Sara’s…Maddy’s?

A ray of sunlight shafted through the window, its beam coming to rest on the mantel just below the portraits. Though the sunbeam had caught her attention, not until Sara left the bed and approached the mantel did she notice something else. At the foot of one of the porcelain candlesticks, haloed by the ray of sunlight, was a small, black velvet box…the same one that had contained Maddy’s birthday locket. Sara blinked, testing the veracity of what she was seeing. The box was still there.

This just could not be.

It simply
was not
possible. Though she fought to deny it, the proof lay right before her eyes. The box couldn’t be here…unless…what had happened in the garden had
not
been a dream, and she’d actually lived through a period of time in the past, and she’d brought the box back with her.

Her knees gave way. She collapsed onto the end of the bed. Confused, she stared at the mantel while she tried to make sense of the nonsensical.

Could she have actually gone back in time? Could she, for those few moments, have entered Maddy’s body and relived an event that had taken place over fifty years ago? Was that possible? She pressed her shaking hand to her chest and felt the quickened rhythm of her heart, and knew it beat with the same magic it had in her dream. The dream had felt more real than any she’d ever known. No matter how she tried, she could not come up with an alternate, plausible explanation for any of this.