Garden of the Moon Read Online Free PDF Page A

cologne her grandmother had specially blended in a French Quarter perfumery still clinging to the room. The scent reminded her of the creamy-white magnolias that bloomed each year throughout the grounds at Harrogate, but most abundantly in the Garden of the Moon. She was glad she’d left the window open to admit their heady scent.
    Memories of Gran filled Sara’s head. Having adored her grandmother, she was seldom far from Sara’s thoughts, but tonight those thoughts were more intense, more persistent. It had to be because she was back at Harrogate. Yes, that had to be it. Sara was home.
    With a contented sigh, she closed her eyes and allowed the shroud of sleep to envelope her.
     
    ***
     
    “Sara.”
    Her name being called softly came from a long way off. She stirred in her sleep and settled more comfortably under the down coverlet.
    “Sara.”
    The side of the mattress dipped, as if someone had sat down beside her.
    “Raina?” Sara mumbled through the mist of sleep still fogging her brain and snuggled deeper into the warm bed clothes. “It’s too early. Let me sleep for a while.”
    “No, my darling girl, it’s not your Raina. It’s me, and you must wake up. I can’t stay long.”
    Sara’s ears pricked. Only one person ever called her my darling girl . Could it be…
    Unable to believe the possibility and instantly alert, Sara forced her eyes open and pushed the covers off her head. She blinked several times, but the face smiling lovingly down at her remained as solid and as real as the bed in which Sara lay.
     
    ***
     
    Slowly, she sat up, never allowing her gaze to leave the woman at her side lest she vanish. Anyone else would have been frightened half to death. But then everyone else wasn’t like Sara. Hadn’t her mother reminded her of that many times over? Sara was used to seeing dead people, and that one had chosen to pay her a nocturnal visit wasn’t at all unusual.
    What did surprise her was who it was. Sitting beside her, love shining from her blue eyes, her body surrounded by a halo of white light, was Alice Wade, her beloved, dead grandmother.

 
     
    Chapter 3
     
     
    “Hello, dear,” Sara’s grandmother said, as though she wasn’t an apparition sitting on her granddaughter’s bed in the middle of the night, but instead a relative who had just dropped by for afternoon tea.
    Gran wore the antique white lace dress in which she’d been buried. Pinned on the dress’ high neck was the cameo brooch Sara had given Gran for her last birthday. How young, vital and beautiful her grandmother looked. Gone were the wrinkles of age and the hint of loneliness that had dimmed her eyes and been always present after her beloved Ezra had died. The scent of magnolias surrounded her. Instantly, all the love and security Sara had always experienced around her grandmother wash over her.
    Suddenly, Sara noticed something in the corner of the bedroom, which was almost obscured by the figure of the older woman. A small ball of milky white light pulsated, moving up and down like a child’s ball and then back and forth like the pendulum on a clock. But she was too excited by her grandmother’s presence to delve into what it was.
    “Gran, is it really you?”
    Her grandmother patted her hand. “Yes, my darling girl, it’s me.”
     
    “Oh, Gran, I am so happy to see you.” Her touch was surprisingly warm. “I’ve missed you so much.”
    “Oh, my dear, I’ve missed you, too.” She squeezed Sara’s hand.
    The ball of light in the corner grew bigger and pulsed with a new strength.
    Gran glanced at it, and then snatched her hand back. “All right, dear, I hear you.” She smiled apologetically at Sara. “He warned me not to touch you.”
    “He?”
    Gran dismissed the question with a wave of her hand, something Sara had seen her do many times when she didn’t want to be bothered with what she considered life’s trivialities.
    Life’s too short to be giving one jot of time to unimportant things ,