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"Oh?" Darcy said She hadn’t heard a word about Marcia Cuo wryly "At the ti a nip or thile working She didn’t want Matt Stone thinking that she was drinking on the job, so she just told Penny she’d had a fall Apparently, when she tried to explain to a few people that there was a very physical ghost in the house, they didn’t think her a credible witness in the least"

"I see I’d love to talk to her" At the counter, Darcy wrote down her cell phone nuave it to Mrs O’Hara "Could you ask Marcia to call me at her convenience?"

Darcy left the library and searched for the little Volvo she had borrowed from Penny Twenty minutes later, she was out at the stables Sa there, and she assured hi the horse herself

Daylight still dappled through the trees, but with such a canopy of green, the forest trails and copses were dark and shadowy as early evening came to pass Darcy rode to the point where she had dis a lazy sip of water at the brook, and returned to her perch upon the log

She hugged her knees to her chest, always a little afraid She closed her eyes, concentrating on the sense of the past that had nearly come clear to her before

First, the cold It settled over the forest like a blanket An inward voice, her own, called out in silent fear as the feeling wrapped around her "Josh!"

"I’m here"

It was the softest voice, or it was insanity It was her ownon different circuits, amad

She opened her eyes The forest had darkened even further She heard voices One light, a girl’s voice She was laughing Talking about the wedding, then apologizing "Ophelia, you’ve been so wonderful He was to have been yours, but then, really, you’d never met, and then we met, and Ophelia, I really do love hiht man for you, I know it Maybe not in this little town, but you’ll travel with Barry and me, and it will be wonderful"

She could see the sisters They had cohost horses had now joined Nellie at the brook Nellie lifted her head, snorted, shied away uneasily, seeirls had a wealth of brown hair, and were clad in simple cotton dresses, petticoats beneath, heavy boots on their feet

Areed softly from her saddle Then she, too, dis her hands to create a dipper so that she could draw a cool drink fro It’s in the water You’ll have to kneel down"

"I’ll get soaked"

"It’s suoose You’ll dry"

A the past replay itself in her len, Darcy wanted to cry out, to warn A of a trance, seeing the ties of what had been, aware that she could only see, that there was nothing she could do

"Soet down, you’ll see!"

It was a classic execution, carried out badly, brutally foiled Once Amy was down, Ophelia drew the heavy ax from the pouch at the back of her saddle Her first blow merely dazed Amy, who screamed and fell sideways into the water Ophelia instantly saw that she had botched a clean kill She began to work arduously, swinging the hatchet again and again while Aainst flesh, bone, muscle, and sinew seemed as loud in the forest as a drumbeat

The vision ca, Darcy could bear it no longer She began to screa forward to the spot, thinking that so Amy nor the determined Ophelia noticed her in the least Tiive was an echo of the past

As Darcy burst upon the sisters, the i, Darcy fell upon her knees in the water Yet, as she knelt there, shaking, horrified at Ophelia’s vicious cruelty to her own sister, she saw the ghost

Ah the brush by an old oak, not twenty feet away

Slowly, Darcy rose

When Matt reached the house, he saw that Clint and Carter were out by the stables, arguing over Riley, a big buckskin quarter horse He strode over to the two of them

"We have more horses," he relorious redheaded guest," Clint said He carried his usual joking tone, but there was a slight edge of steel to it

"She’s out riding again?" Matt asked

"And I say I should be the one riding out just to ht," Carter said He rubbed his beard and grinned "You know, give her a real feel for the charives you Southern charm?" Clint scoffed

"Hey, I’m a land baron, and you’re…a relation," Carter reot your own property You just like to hang out here," Clint returned

Matt ignored the two of the into the saddle He looked down at the two of theo"

They frowned at each other "That’s just not fair," Carter said

"And why not?"

"You’re rude to her," Clint answered

"And she doesn’t really look a da like Lavinia," Carter said

"Yeah, Lavinia is beautiful, but she’s also got that pinched terrier look, you know? Like a woreed

"While this one just seeood in a nightgown," Clint said