Transsibirien-Express [antikvár]

The large ballroom was crowded with familiar ghosts come to help celebrate her birthday. Kate Blackwell watched them min-gle with the flesh-and-blood people, and in her mind, the scene was a dreamlike fantasy as the visitors from another time and place glided around the dance floor with the unsuspecting guests in black tie and long, shimmering evening gowns. There were one hundred people at the party at Cedar Hill House, in Dark Harbor, Maine. Not counting the ghosts, Kate Blackwell thought wryly.She was a síim, petite woman, with a regal bearing that made her appear tallér than she was. She had a face that one remem-bered. A proud bone structure, dawn-gray eyes and a stubborn chin, a blending of her Scottish and Dutch ancestors. She had fine, white hair that once had been a luxuriant black cascade, and against the graceful folds of her ivory velvet dress, her skin had the soft translucence old age sometimes brings.I don't feel ninety, Kate Blackwell thought. Where have all the years gone? She watched the dancing ghosts. They know. They were there. They were a part of those years, a part of my life. She saw Banda, his proud black face beaming. And there was her Dávid, dear Dávid, looking tall and young and handsome, the way he looked when she first feli in love with him, and he was smiling at her, and she thought, Soon, my darling, soon. And she