Micanopy in Shadow by Ann Cook Read Free Book Online Page A

and read:
    “Ah, dream too bright to last!
    Ah, starry Hope! That didst arise
    But to be overcast!
    A voice from out the Future cries …”
    The stanza seemed prophetic. Brandy didn’t know what the “too bright dream” was, but Hope herself had been born and then abandoned or “overcast.” Hope indeed became a “voice from out the future,” crying for answers.
    The poem took up again:
    “Come! Let the burial rite be read—the funeral song be sung!
    An anthem for the queenliest dead that ever died so young”—
    The final lines had intrigued Brandy for years:
    “Let no bell toll!—lest her sweet soul, amid its hallowed mirth, Should catch the note, as it doth float up from the damnéd Earth. To friends above, from fiends below, the indignant ghost is riven—From Hell unto a high estate far up within the Heaven—From Grief and Groan, to a golden throne, beside the King of Heaven.”
    What if the “fiends below” referred to people on the “damnéd earth” in 1921—people responsible for Ada’s tragic death? From what “grief and groan” had Ada’s indignant spirit been wrenched to join her friends in heaven? And why hadn’t the person who grieved for her in such a public way come forward? The poem must be a kind of code. Somebody in Micanopy besides the donor must have understood it.
    Brandy was slipping the copy back into its folder when she heard John on the stairs, along with another rumble of thunder, closer.
    He came in and glanced approvingly around the room. “I see the good fairy’s been here.”
    Brandy chose not to take the remark as sarcasm. “How was the game?”
    “Lousy. I’m out of practice. These guys are good.” He picked up the latest copy of The Gainesville Sun and sat down on the sway-backed sofa.
    Brandy curled up close beside him. “I made that appointment I told you about at 8:30 Sunday morning.” She sighed. “I’ll have to leave by 6:00 to be in Cassadaga in time.”
    He glanced up from the paper. “I don’t want you starting out in the dark, trying to make a deadline. The road through Ocala State Park is isolated enough. It’ll be more so on Sunday. Better go over in the afternoon and stay overnight. Brad and I will be all right.”
    Brandy didn’t tell him she’d already made that arrangement. She stepped to the porch door and looked out. The moon had ridden higher, lacquering the cabbage palms and oaks with silver. An echo of their disagreement about the medium shouldn’t end the evening. She turned back into the living room.
    “That’s sweet of you.” She lifted the paper from John’s hand and, bending down, kissed him deeply. His eyes widened. She dropped her voice. “If I’m going to be gone tomorrow night, let’s make the most of this one.”
    A few strategic buttons undone and he forgot the news, stood, and pulled her close. She squeezed his hand—it could be so gentle—and led the way into the bedroom. Brad lay facing the wall, breathing softly. She tugged her blouse off over her head. She liked him to take care of the rest.
    Later, deliciously tired, she lay beside him and stroked his fingers. She thought of Ada, her remains lying all these years under the lofty memorial stone. Ada had known love, too—at least had a lover, if not a wedding ring. Her daughter was evidence of that.
    Did Ada lose him in the Great War? Or had she come to this little Florida town to find him and found the Smith Street pond instead?

FOUR 
    Saturday dawned with gray skies. John was up earlier than Brandy and standing in the bedroom doorway, briefcase in hand, when she awoke. Rising on one elbow, she surveyed her husband. He was really a fine man—clean, trim, and purposeful looking in his khaki Chinos and open-necked beige polo shirt. She loved the way a wisp of dark hair curled above his collar. Essentially a kind man, too. Not as high maintenance as some.
    “I need to stop by the Irons house this morning,” he said. “I’ll be back before you leave