Ghost Moon by Karen Robards Page A

as a blade of grass seemed to have changed in nine years. Once a vast sugar plantation that had been reduced over time to forty acres of scrub woods and swamp and five acres of lawn, LaAngelle Plantation stretched out around her as far as the eye could see on three sides. On the fourth, past the bluff, she could see part of the lake, glimmering silver in the morning light. Deliberately she made herself look at it. It was no more or less than a body of water, with nothing inherently sinister or evil about it. Certainly no voices called to her from it. Any ghosts from the night before were either the product of her imagination, or had been burned away by the rising sun.
    Crossing the veranda, Olivia headed down the wide stone steps, running a hand lightly over the hard surface of the wrought-iron rail. She stopped for a moment on the flagstone path that led to the driveway, glancing around, uncertain of where she wished to go. Birds chattered and called. Insects droned. In the distance she could just faintly hear the sound of some sort of farm machinery, like a tractor. The pair of giant magnolias that were the centerpiece of the lawn were as magnificent as she remembered them, with white waxy blossoms the size of dinner plates bursting through glossy green foliage. The sweet olive and jasmine near the gazebo were in bloom, as was the rose garden. Tendrils of pale yellow honeysuckle vine twined with the deeper yellow forsythia bushes that formed a hedge around the property. Closer at hand, crimson amaryllis was massed in glorious profusion in front of the neatly clipped thicket of dark green boxwoods that circled the house. The air was redolent with the scent of flowers; just breathing in was a pleasure.
    Although the grounds were beautiful, the reminders of last night’s party were not, and they were everywhere. The Christmas lights were turned off, but they still hung from the eaves of the house and gazebo and clung to the bushes and trees. Festive the night before, this morning they made the property look unkempt, like a just-wakened woman who had gone to bed without washing off her makeup. At the far end of the lawn, a quartet of workmen labored. Two of them, toting black plastic garbage bags, were engaged in picking up trash, while the other two wielded rakes. Plastic cups and forks, napkins, the remnants of balloons, and other odds and ends littered the ground near Olivia’s feet, and she assumed it was as bad everywhere.
    As she looked around, a peacock strolled into view from around the side of the house.
    Leaving the path, Olivia walked across the grass toward the bird, watching with a smile as it lowered its head and grabbed something in its beak. As the object disappeared down a feathered throat to the accompaniment of enthusiastic head bobs, Olivia realized to her dismay that the peacock had just swallowed a cigarette butt with as much avidity as if it had been a bit of leftover cracker. With no obvious ill effects, the bird then continued on his dignified way. Behind him came the two peahens Olivia had seen earlier, still pecking busily at the grass, and a second peacock, strutting with his head up and his tail fully extended.
    All iridescent greens and blues, he was a beautiful sight on a beautiful morning.
    LaAngelle Plantation was just the same as it had always been, Olivia thought, as she rounded the side of the house and headed toward the backyard: a place that belonged more to the past than to the present. But on this morning, with the perfume of flowers in the air and her rebellious teenage years a wry memory, that seemed like a good thing rather than a bad one.
    A movement of some sort on the very edge of her peripheral vision drew her attention, and Olivia glanced toward the house. A huge white Persian cat was walking delicately along the rail of the upper gallery, its tail waving plumelike through the air. One false step would send it plunging about twenty feet to the ground, but it kept on its way as