Plantation Shudders Read Online Free Page A

later to find that the weather was growing dark and moody. There was no way the day would pass without a storm, at least a brief one. She decided not to mention what had happened the night before to anyone. She didn’t want to worry her parents or Gran’.
    The guests slowly assembled on the veranda for the tour of Crozat, yawning at the early hour and limiting their small talk to perfunctory greetings. The only no-shows were the Clabbers. Maggie debated skipping her hostess duty of checking on them, but guilt propelled her down the hall to their room. She could hear the sound of tandem snoring through the door, so she left the couple to their beauty sleep, although in this case the only thing beautiful about it was that it freed her from their company for a few more hours.
    Maggie led her guests through the main house, sharing its history as they went. She was so used to giving tours at both Crozat and Doucet that she could cheerfully impart information while thinking to herself, as she was doing at the moment: How did I go from aspiring artist to plantation guide and maker of cheesy souvenirs?
    She took everyone onto the front lawn for a panoramic view of the stately mansion. “Every side of the house has windows almost a full story high,” Maggie shared. “When all of them are open, they provide a cross breeze that I’m guessing saved at least a few of my ancestors from death by Louisiana mugginess.”
    “I think I got a bad case of that myself,” Cutie Angela muttered. A stout woman bordering on obese, she wiped perspiration off her second chin before it dripped down to her third.
    The group left Crozat’s manicured grounds and hiked through abandoned fields where the plantation’s slave quarters and sugar mill lay in ruins. The Crozats hoped to have the money to restore the plantation’s outbuildings someday, but given the cost of maintaining the buildings that still stood, someday seemed far off.
    Maggie stopped in front of what appeared to be a miniature store. “This was the plantation store, which was built after the war. After the Civil War,” she added for Debbie’s benefit. “Postwar, a lot of former slaves returned to their plantations as tenant farmers, so some plantations set up stores where they could buy supplies more easily than going into town. As transportation improved, the stores disappeared. Crozat’s has been closed for eighty years.”
    Maggie took a skeleton key and unlocked the store’s old door, which crookedly swung open. Everyone stepped into the space and gazed around the century-old time capsule with fascination. The interior was completely intact, down to a few old cans and other dust-covered items still on the shelves. Aturn-of-the-century cash register sat on the counter waiting for what could only be a ghostly transaction at this point. After months of showing off the shop to visitors, Maggie had reached the point where, if she wanted to, she could close her eyes, point to a shelf, and rattle off its faded occupants with 100 percent accuracy.
    “Fantastic,” Jan said. The other Cuties echoed the sentiment, as did all the guests.
    “Oh, Boo Bear, I love it,” Emily Butler gushed. “Don’t you?”
    “Totally, Boo Bear.”
    Maggie took a moment to enjoy their reactions. Guests’ enthusiasm made her efforts worthwhile, especially if they translated into glowing reviews on a travel website. “I always like to finish up my tour here. Now, anyone besides me ready for breakfast?”
    The whole group answered in the affirmative, so Maggie brought them back to the main house. Since the Georgia boys were heading off on a fishing excursion and the Ryker family on a swamp tour, Ninette packed their breakfasts to go. The Butlers—who would now forever be known to the Crozats as the Boo Bears—asked for breakfast in bed.
    “I didn’t know that was an option,” grumped Hal Clabber, whose crabbiness had returned. He and Bev had roused themselves and were seated between Kyle and