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Melody frowned. She opened the door… and was almost knocked back as a wave of heat and humidity washed over her. She stood up and a cacophony of insects buzzed in her ears. The precious air conditioning escaping from the car was a cool, but temporary breeze.
This is crazy!
She was wearing a gorgeous red silken dress. Shoes made for waltzing, not walking. She looked at the path again.
“Really?” Melody sighed.
The driver was already disinterested. With the car still running, he pulled out a newspaper and spread it across the steering wheel.
“I’ll be waiting here for when you get back,” he said.
Melody glanced at the digital display on the dash. It was a little past five O’clock. She had no idea when the ball would start, or when it would end. Or how long it would take her to find an ivory jeweled egg in a tremendous mansion that was probably full of stuff.
“But I don’t even know when that will be,” she said.
The driver licked one finger and turned a page. “I’ll be here,” the man repeated without looking up.
Melody shrugged and closed the door. Already she’d begun sweating. She pinched her dress up and took a few steps in the direction of the little path. The ground was soft and spongy beneath her feet.
Great, she thought to herself. I’ve got the only driver who can’t even find a driveway.
She took another few squishy steps, shaking her head the whole time. The path wasn’t going to walk itself, and the sooner she got started the better.
It was slow going, especially at the thick parts.
What began as a tiny path had rapidly deteriorated into a squirrel’s run. Melody picked her way through the underbrush while using her hands to hold rogue branches at bay. Spanish moss hung everywhere. More than once her foot caught on a vine, almost tripping her up.
Xiomara’s orders my ass, she thought. This is stupid. I’m getting sweaty. Dirty. And I’m supposed to be at a cotillion in just—
She was about to turn around when she very abruptly bumped into something. Waist-high, stretching in both directions, was an elaborate silver gate.
Beyond the gate, the forest opened into a lavish green field. It stretched out hundreds of yards ahead of her — an immaculately-groomed landscape that sloped gently downward toward a breathtaking, three-story, pillared mansion.
Her shoulders slumped in relief.
Well at least the driver was right about something.
Evermoore manor was every bit as gorgeous as in the history books. Long Doric columns jutted up proudly on both sides of the antebellum mansion, capped at the top and bottom. Melody saw wrought-iron balconies. Large, reaching windows. A canopied path led up to a pair of magnificent white doors, lined on both sides by three-hundred year old oak trees.
She tried the gate. It was latched, but not locked. It took her a moment or two to figure out how to work the mechanism, but eventually she was able to swing it wide. She winced at the eerie high-pitched wailing of metal on metal.
Hurry up.
It was her thought for sure, only this time the little voice inside Melody’s head didn’t sound like her own. She shoved it aside. The humidity was stifling. Already it was getting difficult to breathe.
She continued forward, allowing the forest to spit her out into the field of lush, verdant grass. Everything was wide and spacious. Much less claustrophobic. Melody took five steps. Ten. Twenty. She felt immeasurably better already, even cooler, although something was still troubling her. Something nagging at the back of her mind.
Did you close the gate?
She wasn’t so sure. Melody whirled, and noticed the silver gate had somehow closed and latched itself behind her. Even though she couldn’t remember doing it…
Isn’t it further away too?
As strange as it sounded, she wanted to say that it was. It’s not like she’d been counting her steps, but the gate seemed way more distant than it should be. She shrugged. There was nothing to do now but make the mansion before she utterly melted.
She focused on putting one foot in front of the other, while taking in the scenery. The road leading to Evermoore was straight out of a storybook, shaded by magnificent, arching boughs of oak. She was walking parallel to it, having come in on one side of the property.
Silently she wondered what Xiomara’s plan was; why she’d been dropped off at such a strange angle to the rest of the grounds. Why she hadn’t been driven up to the front door. Maybe the old woman wanted Melody to see it. To walk the grounds herself, rather than—
