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Sarah started reading and found a chares She found herself fascinated by the writing alone The author, Sadie Hanrahan, didn’t remember much about the war, but she did recall the days after There had been a great deal of bitterness in the city, despite the fact that it had been in Federal hands for years, and that many of the citizens had never wanted Florida to secede--they had always needed their Yankee tourist dollars It had been a difficult time President Lincoln had been assassinated John Wilkes Booth had been hunted down and shot, and his co-conspirators hanged, but many blamed all Southerners for the death of the president And so many in the South had been stripped of their hoes were filled with tales of growing up and vivid descriptions of buildings that hadn’t changed to this day There were also so to deal with the cu women had to wear, even in the summer heat And then Sarah hit the jackpot

It was on a Saturday late in 1865 that I walked by the old Grant place with Scotty Kehoe It was near dusk, and in front of the building, in the drive,the lass-encased hearse with a coffin inside At first I was enthralled by the two horses that were to draw the funerary wagon; they were glorious big black beasts, wearing black-feathered headdresses But Scotty was drawn by the coffin within the hearse "Co?" I protested Then he called me a chicken Well, I couldn’t have that He’d cluck at h the brush that was kept neatly trie house and then we crawled up on the conveyance to look in I’d never been to a funeral I was shocked by the coffin It was beautifully carved, but there was a glassabove the face I saw the girl in the coffin She was young, with beautiful wheat-colored hair, and she had pale skin, like all her blood was gone, but her lips were a bright red She looked as if she was sleeping "Look, she’s opening her eyes!" Scotty teased, and I nearly screamed I did slide from my perch That hen the elder Mr Brennan came out on the porch I had always hated him We weren’t bad people, not ers But Mr Brennan had rather taken over the place before he had bought it We’d heard tales that the previous owner’s father, Mr MacTavish, had been a kind man, forced to turn his home into a funeral parlor to survive once his plantations had failed and his son was gone to war MacTavish had died, and his son had returned from the war only to have his heart broken when he found his father dead and his fiancée gone, so I’d been told So, and a valiant soldier Always char, especially to children and the elderly But other people whispered about hi that he was really the devil incarnate and a murderer But at least some people had liked him, and no one liked old man Brennan I especially didn’t like Mr Brennan after that day He was furious; he yelled at us and proun out, that ere defiling the dead We ran I thought he would tell our parents about the incident, but he never did

I found out who the girl in the coffin was that night, whento hi’un disappearedafoot, just like that Madison girl who disappeared in ’sixty-two She died in a carriage accident, too--so they said I didn’t believe it then, and I don’t believe it now Not Miss Della Bentley It’s theers that run this place that say what isn’t is, and ignore what’s going on They say one girl rode off with her Rebel lover, and another girl ran off to meet her Yankee lover, and it just ain’t so They’re just saying it was a carriage accident ’cause poor Mr Cato MacTavish isn’t around for the this on! Why, they’ve even tried to start the ru in the woods--that he comes back to stalk and hunt woe accidents"

My father was a good edy about the poor girl, but we couldn’t go believing in wild fantasies made up by folks ere bitter about the war and had little else to do

Our housekeeper walked away,

My father kept a sharp eye on h I wasn’t allowed to walk around town anymore with the other children But by then, eren’t really allowed to be children at all anyway Maybe it had to do with it being the aftermath of the war I was a child at the time My father trusted the authorities I trusted my father

After that day, whenever I saw Mr Brennan on the streets, I ran One day, when I was much older, I asked e He was silent for a long tiedy there," he toldMr MacTavish had left I understood a broken heart--half the women not too many years older than I was had broken hearts, on account of their fellows had died in the war But he had abandoned such a beautiful house

"The disappearances," my father said "Or the murders," he added after a moment of reflection "I didn’t believe it at the time" He rattled off a list of naht when Cato MacTavish came home We assumed then that they had run off--it was a war, conditions were irls were ever found--and the doctor on call said that both had died in the streets Carriage accidents But…they didn’t look right" He stopped He wasn’t going to tell me any details of the corpses that had been found "Cato’s fiancée had disappeared right after he left to fight, and since he wasn’t here, he was a good scapegoat When he returned fronant or he was just tired of her He tried to fight the accusations--they weren’t official, there was no evidence--but bear this in ive rise to battles and wars, and in the end, he was a soldier who could not win the battle of words, I’ is, soon after he left, the housekeeper disappeared, too She wasn’t actually his housekeeper, she had come with Brennan But the whole city was terrified of her" "Why?" I asked "Black ic," I told him He shook his head "I didn’t want to believe They said that she ic and irls disappear Or made them run away Or perhaps she was the one who killed them The truth, Brennan was allied with the powers that controlled the city at the time Cato MacTavish was not And MacTavish was a ed his name when he went north--or south All anyone knows for sure is that he rode out of town one day on his father’s big bay, crying out his innocence and cursing the city, never to be seen again Brennan, now, Brennan is a dangeroushiet hold of the place for himself It’s always dark, that house, always covered in a pall of black and o, to stay away And I want you to do so now and forever, even if you’re growing into a woman"

And so I did But as the years went by, I found ain It was on St George, just a block from my home, so it was easy to take that route The house remained sheathed in black, black veils, black drapes, black wreaths And the death carriages came and went, and I still wondered why oldup on his hearse and looking into the coffin of the beautiful young wo, nearly sending her flying from the chair as it broke into her intense concentration

"Hello?" she said a bit breathlessly

"Sarah?" It was Caroline

"Yes, hi"

"Are you all right?"