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In the greenhouse, Roz watered flats of annu-als she&039;d grown over the winter It was nearly time to put them out for sale Part of her was always a little sad to know she wouldn&039;t be the one planting them And she knew that not all of thelect, others would be given too h Now they were lush and sweet and full of potential

And hers

She had to let theo She had to hope, as with her boys, that they found their potential and bloouys More than she&039;d realized now that her house had boys in it again with all their chatter and scents and debris Having Harper close helped, so much at times that it was hard for her not to lean too heavily on him, not to surround hie when he was just hers Though he lived within shouting distance, and they often worked together side by side, he would never be just hers again

She had to content herself with occasional visits, with phone calls and e-e that they were happy building their own lives

She&039;d rooted theo

She wouldn&039;t be one of those overbearing, s mothers Sons, like plants, needed space and air But oh, soo back ten years, twenty, and just hold on to those precious boys a little bit longer ·

And senti to make her blue, she reminded herself She switched off the water just as Stella careenhouse

Roz drew a deep breath "Nothing like the smell of damp soil, is there?"

"Not when you&039;re us Look at theseto fly out the door I et here early I&039;ve got that Garden Club ether a couple dozen six-inch pots as centerpieces"

"Good advertising I just wanted to thank you again for watching the boys for ht"

"I enjoyed it A lot Did you have a good ti to be a problean and I see each other socially?"

"Why would it be?"

"In a work situation "

"Adults should be able to live their own lives, just like in any situation You&039;re both unattached adults I expect you&039;ll figure out for yourself if there&039;s any proble"

"And we&039;re both using &039;socializing&039; as a euphe back some petunias "Stella, if you didn&039;t want to have sex with a an, I&039;d worry about you"

"I guess you&039;ve got nothing to worry about, then Still, I want to sayI&039; in your house, so I want to say I&039;m not prolanced up briefly from her work "You&039;re too careful, too deliberate, and a bit too bound up to be proht-ass," Stella muttered

"Not precisely But if you were promiscuous, it would still be your business and not mine You don&039;t need my approval"

"I want it - because I&039; in your house And because I respect you"

"All right, then" Roz moved on to impatiens "You have it One of the reasons I wanted you to live in the house was because I wanted to get to know you, on a personal level When I hired you, I was giving you a piece of so very important to me, personally important So if I&039;d decided, after the first feeeks, that you weren&039;t the sort of person I could like and respect, I&039;d have fired you" She glanced back "No matter how competent you were Competent just isn&039;t that hard to find"

"Thanks I think"

"I think I&039;ll take in soeraniums that are already potted Saves ood supply of them"

"Let me kno many, and I&039;ll adjust the inventory Roz, there was so else I wanted to talk to you about"

&039;Talk away," Roz invited as she started to select her plants ;

"It&039;s about the ghost"

Roz lifted a saleranium, studied it from all sides "What about her?"

"I feel stupid even talking about this, but have you ever felt threatened by her?"

"Threatened? No I wouldn&039;t use a word that strong" Roz set the geranium in a plastic tray, chose another "Why?"

"Because, apparently, I&039;ve seen her"

"That&039;s not unexpected The Harper Bride tends to show herself to irls, occasionally I saw her ularly once the boys started co"

"Tell ht" As she spoke, Roz continued to select her geraniums for the Garden Club "Thin Very thin Mid- to late twenties at h it&039;s hard to tell She doesn&039;t look well That is," she added with an absent sreat deal of beauty, but was ill for some tireen and gray And very sad She wears a gray dress - or it looks gray, and it hangs on her as if she&039;d lost weight"

Stella let out a breath "That&039;s who I saw What I saw It&039;s too fantastic, but I saw"

"You should be flattered She rarely shows herself to anyone outside the faoes You shouldn&039;t feel threatened, Stella"

"But I did Last night, when I got home, and went in to check on the boys I heard her first She sings some sort of lullaby"

" &039;Lavender&039;s Blue&039; It&039;s what you could call her trade out small clippers, Roz trimmed off a weak side stem "She&039;s never spoken that I&039;ve heard, or heard of, but she sings to the children of the house at night"

" &039;Lavender&039;s Blue&039; Yes, that&039;s it I heard her, and rushed in There she was, standing between their beds She looked at me It was only for a second, but she looked at ry There was a blast of cold, like she&039;d thrown so at me in temper Not like the other times, when I&039;d just felt a chill"

Interested now, Roz studied Stella&039;s face "I felt as if I&039;d annoyed her a few tie of tone Very like you described, I suppose"

"It happened"

"I believe you, but primarily, fron sort of presence I always took those teet et moody," Stella repeated slowly "I just don&039;t understand a statement like that"

"People do, don&039;t they? Why should that change when they&039;re dead?"

"Okay," Stella said after ato try to roll with all this, like it&039;s not insanity So,here"

"Over the last hundred years or so, Harper House has had a lot of people live in it, a lot of houseguests She ought to be used to it If you&039;d feel better- "

"No I don&039;t see how that would ht to sleep in the boys&039; roory with them It was just me Who was she?"

"Nobody knows for sure In polite company, she&039;s referred to as the Harper Bride, but it&039;s assuoverness My theory is one of the men in the house seduced her, nant There&039;s the attachical she had a connection to kids It&039;s a sure bet she died in or around the house"

"There&039;d be records, right? A faraphs, tintypes, whatever"

"Oh, tons"

"I&039;d like to go through theht with you I&039;d like to try to find out who she was I want to knoho, or what, I&039;ht" Clippers still in hand, Roz set a fist on her hip "I guess it&039;s odd no one&039;s ever done it before, including "

"This is so awesome" Hayley looked around the library table, where Stella had arranged the photograph albums, the thick Bible, the boxes of old papers, her laptop, and several notebooks "We&039;re like the Scooby gang"

"I can&039;t believe you saw her, too, and didn&039;t say anything"

Hayley hunched up her shoulders and continued to wander the rooed Besides, except for the once, I only caught a glimpse, like over here" She held up a hand at the side of her head "I&039;ve never been around an actual ghost This is colad so herself"

She really was As she and her father had both loved books, they&039;d used their living roo the shelves with books, putting in a couple of big, squishy chairs

It had been nice, cozy and nice

But this was a library Beautiful bookcases of deep, dark wood flanked long s, then rose up and around the walls in a kind of platfor table stood There had to be hundreds of books, but it didn&039;t seereen of the walls and the war black candlesticks and the groupings of family pictures on the mantel

There were s Fascinating things like bowls and statues and a dome-shaped crystal clock Flowers, of course There were flowers in nearly every room of the house These were tulips with deep, deep purple cups that sort of spilled out of a wide, clear glass vase

There were lots of chairs, wide, butter-soft leather chairs, and even a leather sofa Though a chandelier dripped fro, and even the bookcases lit up, there were lalass The rugs were probably really old, and so interesting with their pattern of exotic birds around the borders

She couldn&039;t iine what it must have been like to have a room like this, much less to know just how to decorate it so it would be - well, gorgeous was the only word she could think of - and yet still be as cozy as the little library she&039;d had at home

But Roz knew Roz, in Hayley&039;s opinion, was the absolute bomb

"I think this is my favorite room of the house," she decided "Of course, I think that about every room after I&039;m in it for five minutes But I really think this wins the prize It&039;s like a picture out of Southern Living or so You wouldn&039;t be afraid to take a nap on the couch"

"I knohat you mean" Stella set aside the photo albuh "Hayley, you have to re about this to the kids"

"Of course, I won&039;t" She came back to the table, and finally sat "Hey, reat"

"I&039;lanced over as David came in

"Ghost hunter snacks," he announced and set the tray on the table "Coffee, tea, cookies I considered angel food cake, but it see fun with this?"

"Da to roll up my sleeves and dive into all this stuff It&039;ll be nice to put a naer on Stella&039;s laptop "And this is for?"

"Notes Data, facts, speculation I don&039;t know It&039;sa packing box There was a se of dust on her cheek and silky threads of cobwebs in her hair "Household accounts, froive us a start"

She durinned "This should be fun Don&039;t knohy I haven&039;t thought of it before Where do y&039;all want to start?"

"I was thinking we could have a seance," Hayley began "Maybe she&039;ll just tell us who she is and why her spirit&039;s, you know, trapped on this plane of existence That&039;s the thing with ghosts They get trapped, and sometimes they don&039;t even know they&039;re dead How creepy is that?"

"A seance" David rubbed his hands together "Nohere did I leave hter, Stella rapped her knuckles on the table "If we could control the hilarity? I thought we&039;d start with so to date her"

"I&039;ve never dated a ghost," David mused, "but I&039;m up for it"

"Get her time period," Stella said with a slanted look for David "By what she&039;s wearing We et an estih fashion" Roz nodded as she picked up a cookie "That&039;s good"

"Sreed "But I didn&039;t really notice what she had on I only got a glih-necked Long sleeves"

"Can any of us sketch?" Stella asked "I&039;ht lines and curves, but I&039;d be hopeless with figures"

"Roz is your girl" David patted Roz on the shoulder

"Can you draw her, Roz? Your iive it a shot"

"I bought notebooks" Stella offered one and made Roz smile

"Of course you did And I bet your pencils are all nicely sharpened, too Just like the first day of school"

"Hard to write with the that, why don&039;t you tell us your experiences withI guess we&039;ll call her the Harper Bride for now"

"Only had a few, and all back when I was a kid, hanging out here with Harper"

"What about the first tiet your first" He winked at her, and after sitting, poured hi in with Harper, and ere pretending to be asleep so Roz didn&039;t co - "

"They always thought they were," Roz said as she sketched

"I think it was spring I remember we had the s open, and there was a breeze I&039;d have been around nine I h he was a year behind me, we hit it off We hadn&039;t known each other but a feeeks when I caht So ere there, in the dark, thinking hispering, and he toldit up to scare me, but he swore all the way up to the needle in his eye that it was true, and he&039;d seen her lots of times

"Wesoht it was Roz, and I was a little embarrassed, so I squinted one eye open to see"

He sipped coffee, narrowing his eyes as he searched for the memory "And I saw her She walked over to Harper&039;s bed and bent over him, the way you do when you kiss a child on the top of the head Then she walked across the roo chair over in the corner She sat down and started to rock, and sing"

He set the coffee down "I don&039;t know if I ht at , but she ser to her lips as if to tell me to hush Then she disappeared"