Swan's Way Read Online Free Page A

head back, and closed her eyes. As weary as she was after her eight-hour shift, she felt excitement bubbling in her blood. Again, she thought that for some reason this Monday seemed different— special . But why? She had no idea, but she knew she wouldn’t have missed it for the world. Something was about to happen—her horoscope today had said so. “Something exciting, perhaps even life-altering,” the paper had forecast, and she believed it.
    Lost in thought, she didn’t realize the bus had reached the highway rest stop, until Sam said, “Hey, Ginna! We’re here. You gettin’ off or going all the way to Front Royal with me today?”
    She jumped to her feet and flashed Sam a warm smile. “See you later.”
    “You have a good one, now!”
    Usually, she stood beside the highway to wave, as Sam pulled back into traffic. Today, however, she turned and rushed away. She was fairly quivering with excitement, as she hurried to the restroom to change clothes. Her friends at Swan’s Quarter wouldn’t know her without the old costume she had bought several years ago at a thrift shop.
    The white ruffled gown and scarlet velvet opera cape were probably not authentic, but the gown looked as if it might have been made back before the Civil War. She could imagine some Swan family bride wearing it, as she descended the grand staircase at the old plantation on her wedding day. When Ginna put it on, she felt like a different person. She could almost forget that she lived alone, was still single at twenty-seven (twenty-eight in a few more days), and likely to remain so. She could even forget that she was a waitress with more bills to pay than money to pay them and more worries than joys in her life. On days like this— special days—she even let herself forget her doctor’s stern lectures.
    With the antique satin and lace caressing her skin, she became, miraculously, another person entirely—the lovely and mysterious “Miss Ginna” from out of the past, come to take tea with her friends at the beautiful old plantation. Although Ginna dreamed constantly about the glory days of Swan’s Quarter, she knew she could never recreate the past. Still, she thought, somehow today anything seemed possible.
    At times, especially when she wasn’t feeling well, the walk from the rest stop through the woods to Swan’s Quarter seemed to take forever. She would have to pause along the way to catch her breath. Today, though, clutching her cape against the autumn chill, it was as if she had wings on her feet. She felt breathless with her own speed and with the change she sensed coming over her. By the time she reached the edge of the smoky-gold woods, that other Ginna was completely gone, along with the Rebel Yell Cafe, her drab little apartment, and everything else in her life that was dull and ordinary. She might have been a time-traveler, happening upon the serene plantation with its lovely swan pond, manicured lawn, and giant tulip poplar.
    She felt so different—almost childlike in her excitement. She imagined that a casual observer strolling through the forest might have taken her for little more than a wisp of autumn woodsmoke drifting among the trees. The brisk breeze blew her hair. Quickly, she tied it with a sky-blue ribbon, subduing her rampant waves that now looked the golden color of the turning leaves.
    Ginna couldn’t know what an uncanny resemblance she held to Miss Virginia Swan. Both women had the same smoky-gold hair, the same slight figure, and those startling eyes which were of no earthly color. Instead, they gleamed with shades of heaven. Once, long ago, while painting a portrait of Virginia, an artist from England had described their hue as “celestial hazel”—shifting tints of sky-blue, storm-gray, moon-silver, and sun-gold.
    Now Ginna’s eyes of that same heavenly hue focused on three figures in the distance. They were waiting for her, probably wondering why she was late for their weekly teatime visit.
    She