Cassandra heard the dull snick of the lock. Cool autumn air wafted gently up the stairs and swirled around her ankles. As if blowing away the dark stale stench of a century, the eerie wind made it feel like the house had just taken a huge cleansing breath. Filled with a strange excitement, she stood statue still, thinking how the breeze had imbued the house and everything in it with a vibrant rush of life.

Unwilling to believe someone was actually entering the house after all these years, she waited impatiently on the third-floor landing. A few minutes earlier, the rumble of an automobile engine had brought her to attention, but she never thought anyone would ever again come inside her home.

In the beginning, people had walked up the half-mile drive and stared, unable to comprehend that a house this grand was doomed to rot like a perfect shiny apple left too long in the sun. She’d watched them shake their heads, had heard their amazed whispers and felt gladdened to know they thought Colin MacPherson a madman. Crazy as a bedbug, they’d muttered, for boarding up such a fine place simply because his fiancée had run back to her homeland.

If only they had known the truth...

But it no longer mattered what people thought, she reminded herself. Right now someone was in her house. After all this time, she would have the opportunity to interact with a human close up instead of studying one from the third story window.

She drifted down the stairway and lingered in the upper hall, waiting to see if the visitor would have the audacity to climb the stairs. When she heard a noise in the foyer, she made her way to the balcony. From there she could survey the first floor and see the interloper.

The front doors stood open, letting in a shaft of late afternoon sunlight so pure it would have made her eyes sting had she been alive. Narrowing her gaze, she scanned the foyer, noting the outline of footprints as they tracked their way over the dusty marble-tiled floor. She could tell from their size and shape the intruder was a man. And he had definitely used a key, because it was still stuck in the door’s tarnished brass lock.

Cassandra set a hand on her chest, over the hollow place that would have held her heart, as she realized what the fact could signify. If someone used a key, it was unlikely they were a thief or a child looking to explore. Whoever the person was, she had to assume he was here for a legitimate reason.

Carefully, she made her way down the curving staircase. Caressing the crumbling banister that had once been waxed to a mirror shine, she let the questions tumble through her mind. Who had come into the house and what did they want? After all these years, had the MacPherson family sold her home?

The idea was too impossible to comprehend.

Colin had sworn he’d built the place for her. On the day she’d been entombed, after he had knocked her backward with one swipe of his powerful hand, he’d tossed the deed with which he had tried to bribe her at her feet. Who would dare to take from her the only home she had known for the last one hundred years? How dare a descendant of Colin’s, for only a MacPherson would be so despicable as to try to sell her home out from under her, have the nerve to begin living here again.

Growing annoyed, she floated erratically above the smudged footprints as she followed them to the library. Her lips drew into a satisfied line at the thought that whoever was in the room would be trapped there. Slightly mollified, she tried to decide if she should confront her guest and find out what he wanted, or simply scare the intruder’s socks off and then toss him out as quick as shaking dirt from a rug.

She came to the edge of the open pocket doors and stopped to take in the figure standing in a far corner of the spacious room. Arms hanging at his sides, the stranger was staring upward at the drooping mahogany molding that rimmed the walls. Her gaze was drawn to the graceful hand-carved bookshelves, empty of course, but still quite impressive. The books had been taken away shortly after her death, but she still remembered fondly the wonder of those fine leather-bound volumes, many first editions from the very best writers of the time.

Casting her gaze back to the intruder, she assessed him more carefully. She’d been correct in thinking he would be tall, as he stood at least a half-foot above her own five-foot-six-inches. With a crisp white shirt stretched across broad shoulders and neatly-pressed tan trousers hugging his finely-molded backside, he looked to be a braw figure of a man. Not that it mattered one whit to her, of course. Colin had been tall and nicely formed and he had repulsed her completely.

Without warning, the stranger took his hat from his head and raised a bronze forearm to his brow. The pale downy hair gilding his arm matched the sun streaked locks that curved around his head and well-shaped ears. When hard-corded muscles flexed beneath his tanned smooth skin, Cassandra found herself overcome with a strange and disturbing shiver of awareness.

He reseated his cap and she jumped at the motion. Snapped from her reverie, she held her breath, if a spirit could actually do such a thing, and waited for him to turn so she could see his face. Something about him niggled like a burr in her shoe, a wisp of a memory to which she couldn’t quite put a name.

Almost as if he knew she was there, the man spun on his heel, causing her to gasp in silence. He was back! The sweet-faced boy who had invaded her space a lifetime ago had returned. He’d been younger, of course, hardly old enough to hold a job the last time she’d seen him, with piercing emerald eyes and lovely golden curls. For a while he had come so frequently, she’d actually begun to watch for him, had almost made up her mind to meet him. Then, after what seemed a lifetime ago, his random visits had stopped and she had returned to her singular existence. She had forgotten about him until this moment.

Stirring herself, Cassandra straightened her shoulders. No matter how handsome his face or admirable his form, his presence was raising her temper to the boiling point. It hadn’t been clear why he’d come in the past and, since he’d already spent more time here than usual, this visit was just as murky. Surely a bad sign.

Gliding closer, she thought of all the things she could do to send him packing. A howling wind to tousle his sun kissed curls or maybe a dangle of chains--she’d become quite adept at rattling chains since her imprisonment--should do the trick. Better still, a laugh--soft at first but growing in intensity, until it rocked the fixtures and caused the plaster to tumble down around his leonine-like head.

With her mind intent on so many delicious choices, she didn’t feel him pass through her until he actually did it. And while the sensation merely caused a tremor to ripple up from the tips of her toes to the top of her head, it brought him to a stiff and sudden standstill.

She gave what she hoped was a ferocious grin as she watched him spin around. His green eyes glittered as he slowly lifted a hand to search her invisible form. Raising a finger, he probed tentatively in the vicinity of her stomach, then went higher until he poked at a breast.

"Hey, watch yourself," Cassandra thought, projecting the sentiment outward.

Quick as a wink the hand jerked back. His handsome face flushed scarlet. Emerald eyes widened as his tawny brows rose into question marks. Bold as brass, he took the hat from his head and waved it through her face, or where he must have supposed her face to be.

"Who’s there?" he demanded, his eyes narrowing in a squint.

"Grrrr," she growled like an angry alley cat. Let him chew on that for a while.

The man took a step backward. "Who...what are you? What do you want?"

He had cheek, she’d give him that. "To be left in peace, you great bonehead," she tossed out smartly. "Now go away."

Glaring, he tugged the cap onto his head. Cassandra saw the small, leering devil’s face and frowned. The intruder was wearing a self-likeness, though his face and form were much more pleasant. Still, that didn’t make her want him here, in her house, a moment longer.

Pirate-like, he folded his arms across his broad, muscled chest and peered, trying to focus his gaze. "Who are you?" He lifted a hand and waved it toward her face. "What are you?"

"Shoo! Scat! Be off with you!" she ordered. Jerking backward, she waggled her fingers as if chasing a naughty puppy.

Dropping back another step, he hesitantly surveyed the room, looking, she thought, for some kind of trickery.

Fisting her hands on her hips, Cassandra blew a springy corkscrew curl from her forehead. She’d spent time perfecting only the simplest of spells, mostly for her own amusement. If her visitor was going to come around more often, perhaps now would be the time to start practicing in earnest. Thinking on it, she watched him back out of the room with a surprisingly silly grin on his perfectly-molded mouth.

If she didn’t know better, she’d think he was laughing...at her!

Before she could wish him into a moth, or maybe a wee, tiny flea, he left the house the way he entered and locked the door behind him.