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“Lucus! You’re…”
He bolted upright and looked around. They were still at the plantation… only the plantation was gone.
“What… what…”
His throat was too dry to even speak. Melody jumped up and and spoke for him.
“We’re here!” she screamed. “We made it back! YOU made it back!”
“B—Back?”
“It worked!”
She hugged him, flinging herself upon him like she had on the steps of the manor’s front porch. His body was warm and firm, his heart beating slow and steady in his massive chest. Lucus stood and lifted her easily into the air with him, his mouth dropping open in utter disbelief.
“YOU… YOU BROUGHT ME WITH YOU?”
She nodded. Smiled. Kissed him hard on his mud-streaked mouth.
For several moments all he could do was spin a slow circle, holding her, taking everything in.
Then Lucus’s mouth split wide in a broad, white-toothed grin.
The house was there, only it wasn’t. They were still exactly where the porch would be, looking up at a half-dozen or so broken columns that used
to make up the magnificent face of Evermoore manor. Other than that, nothing else remained of the once-great mansion. The walls, the roof, the tall windows and wide balconies — all of these things had collapsed inward and sunken into the soft earth. Here and there, a blackened beam or a piece of something man-made jutted up through the mud and muck. But otherwise…
“It’s… It’s…”
“Gone?”
Lucus nodded mechanically. Everything — including the carriage house and barn, up on the hill — had completely and utterly vanished.
“But how?” he swore beneath his breath. “How could it all just—”
“Lucus it’s been two hundred years,” said Melody. “Whatever happened to the manor… that’s what happened. Time took it back. Nature took it back…”
She gestured with one sweeping arm. Evermoore’s wide, reaching fields were now dotted with forests. The road leading up to the manor’s front doors was mostly gone, but enough of the great oaks remained to show where it once had been.
“Look,” said Melody pointing. “The gardens.”
In the back of the house, the once-beautiful gardens were completely grown over. Even so, a few pieces of marble and statuary still remained. She imagined she could make out the place where the hedge maze had been. Maybe even part of the fountain…
“It’s all gone,” he said. “Everything. Gone forever.”
Melody nodded and took his hand. She squeezed it tightly.
“Are you sad?”
Lucus shook his head. “Not even a little bit.”
“Good,” said Melody.
She turned her back to the house and held one hand over her eyes, shielding them from the sun. After a moment of searching, something glinted brightly near the edge of the trees.
“Come on,” she said, pulling him in that direction. “We’re getting out of here.”
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