The House at Riverton
A Novel
GHOSTS STIR
Last November I had a nightmare.
It was 1924 and I was at Riverton again. All the doors hung wide open, silk billowing in the summer breeze. An orchestra perched high on the hill beneath the ancient maple, violins lilting lazily in the warmth. The air rang with pealing laughter and crystal, and the sky was the kind of blue we'd all thought the war had destroyed forever. One of the footmen, smart in black and white, poured champagne into the top of a tower of glass flutes and everyone clapped, delighting in the splendid wastage.
I saw myself, the way one does in dreams, moving amongst the guests. Moving slowly, much more slowly than one can in life, the others a blur of silk and sequins.
I was looking for someone.
Then the picture changed and I was near the summer house, only it wasn't the summer house at Riverton -- it couldn't have been. This was not the shiny new building Teddy had designed, but an old structure with ivy climbing the walls, twisting itself through the windows, strangling the pillars.
Someone was calling me. A woman, a voice I recognized, coming from behind ... read full excerpt from: The House at Riverton: A Novel ebook
