Jared and Kimberley didn't have to glance at each other over Molly's head to understand that both of them were thinking exactly the same thing: How come we've never been here before?

The long drive southeast from Shreveport had been made in silence, the kind of silence that strained everyone's nerves, as if a bomb were ticking somewhere in the car, and each of them was nervously waiting for it to explode. Both the older children had held their breath when their mother offered to drive so their father could sleep, but Ted contented himself with a deep scowl in his wife's direction, and the observation that "I drive better dead drunk than most people do stone sober."

Silence. No one was going to fall into that trap. Even Molly had somehow sensed that today was not a good one for fussing.

But now, as they drove into the town of St. Albans, the tension in the car finally began to ease, partly out of the simple knowledge that the long drive through the humid heat was almost over, but mostly because the scene unfolding before them was so completely unexpected, at least for Jared and Kimberley. Although neither of them had ever been there, they had both been aware of St. Albans for as long as they could remember.

It was where Aunt Cora lived, locked away in a sanatorium. Even when the twins were very small they'd imagined what it must look like. They'd whispered descriptions of it to each other in the bedroom they shared until they were five, vying with each other to describe the scariest place imaginable: a brick building with bars over the windows, surrounded by a high chain-link fence. "With barbwire on top," Jared solemnly assured his sister, "so the crazy people can't climb over and kill us all."

"I bet they keep them in cages," Kim had offered, but Jared, ten minutes older, and thus far wiser than his sister, shook his head.

"They keep the worst ones in pits," he told her. "With only a hole on the top that they drop food through, and a metal lid so they can't climb out."

The St. Albans of their fantasies was no less grim than their imaginings about the sanatorium. "I don't even want to talk about it," their father told them the few times they'd asked him what it was like. "My uncle threw my father out, and he never went back. Hated the place till the day he died, and hated my aunt and uncle, too. Said he'd rather burn in hell than live in St. Albans." The image the children conjured from this grim declaration was composed of bits and pieces of the worst things they'd ever seen-rotting shanties with no windows and sagging roofs, jumbled together on grassless tracts of worn-out land facing unpaved roads; a crumbling, heat-baked main street with a few stores with peeling paint and filthy windows displaying dusty, unwanted merchandise. In their minds, St. Albans was all but deserted-most of the population, of course, having been confined to the sanatorium, which they'd imagined as looming darkly in the center of the town.

What they now saw was even more surprising than their wild imaginings. The little town appeared almost out of nowhere as they came around a bend in the highway. Rather than narrowing, the road widened as it came into St. Albans, and became a boulevard with a broad median strip separating the two lanes. A row of ancient oak trees marched down the median, spaced widely enough when they were planted so that now their branches, dripping with Spanish moss, provided a perfect canopy for the street and the front yards of the homes that faced it. After half a mile the street opened into a large oak-shaded square that held a bandstand, some picnic tables, and a small playground for children. On one side of the square a row of shop fronts glistened from buildings at least a dozen decades old, but as freshly painted as the day they'd been built. Everywhere, the influence of New Orleans was clear, from the gated facades that promised sun-dappled courtyards hidden behind them, to the ornately worked wrought iron that decorated second-floor balconies. Jalousied shutters were closed against the morning heat, and only small windows pierced the thick walls of the shops, which were identified by ornately lettered signs hanging from curlicued iron brackets.

"It looks sort of like the French Quarter," Jared said as they passed through the center of town.

"But a lot duller," his father observed darkly, and a moment later turned right, away from the square.

The side streets appeared to be as well kept as the main street and the area around the square, and were lined with houses that also echoed New Orleans, with French, Georgian, and Victorian styles jumbled together in a pleasant melange brought together by the moss-draped trees that spread over the lawns and gardens. These offered shady respite from the pervading heat that lay over the town even now, in early fall.

"It's beautiful," Kim breathed as her father turned left after driving two more blocks. Here, the oaks gave way to willows, their branches draping gracefully to within a foot of the ground. Then, in the next block, placed in the center of a large lawn, she saw a sign:

The Willows At St. Albans

The sanatorium was not at all what she and Jared had imagined. A white limestone structure whose core section rose two stories, it was fronted by a broad porch with five Corinthian columns rising all the way up to support the roof. Single-story wings spread out from the center, also constructed of white limestone. The windows, far from being barred, were flanked with gray wooden shutters, held open with wrought-iron hooks. Bougainvillea blooming in a profusion of scarlet, red, and pink was banked against the twin wings, and a low fence of sculpted wrought iron surrounded a broad lawn that boasted two of the largest willow trees Kim had ever seen.

Ted pulled the car to a stop in a parking area at the foot of the steps that led to the wide front porch. But as his wife and children piled out into the late-morning sunshine to stretch after the long ride, he stayed behind the wheel, his eyes fixed on the building almost as if he expected some danger suddenly to manifest itself.

Janet glanced nervously at the kids. "She's a harmless old lady, Ted," she said quietly. "And she's dying. It's not going to hurt you to say goodbye to her."

Ted's eyes narrowed, but he finally got out of the car.

Together, the family mounted the steps, crossed the porch, and pushed through the front door.

Inside, they found a comfortable reception area, with several chintz-covered, overstuffed chairs arranged around a large coffee table. A gray-haired woman wearing a pale blue dress-and a small white badge that identified her as Beatrice LeBecque-looked up from a computer terminal, her smile of welcome fading into an expression of sympathy as she recognized Ted and Janet Conway. "I'm so glad you were able to come," she said. "I think Mrs. Conway's been waiting for you."

"She didn't even know-" Ted began.

"She's awake?" Janet quickly asked, deliberately cutting Ted off, her glance darting warningly toward Jared and Kim.

"I believe so," the receptionist replied. She pointed toward a set of double doors at the far end of the reception area that led to one of the two wings. "The third room on the right, in East Two."

"Can the children wait here?" Janet asked.

"Of course," Beatrice LeBecque replied. "But if the two older ones want to see their aunt, I can look after the little one." Producing a bright red lollipop from the center drawer of her desk, she held it out toward Molly. "Look what I've got for you."

Molly immediately squirmed to be set free from her mother's arms, and Janet lowered her to the floor. In an instant she was around the end of the desk and climbing up into Bea LeBecque's lap. "I think we'll get along just fine." Bea smiled. "I like to think children like me, though I suspect it's more the lollipops."