'THE MYSTERY OF ROANOKE,' CHAPTER 5 (FIFTH OF FOURTEEN PARTS)

The twins woke to a rainy, windy day. Melissa told Brian about her strange night. He hadn't heard any music, he said. Nor had he smelled flowers.

"It's like the writing on my door," Brian said. "It disappears and you can't see it. Then you hear music and smell flowers and I don't."

"It's like those things were meant just for each of us," Melissa said. Which made it all the more unsettling.

But at least the map was real. They left it hidden in its box in Brian's room and decided to say nothing about it.

After breakfast, they said goodbye to their parents, who were driving back to West Virginia. It was hard to watch them leave, since it would be weeks -- probably not until Thanksgiving -- before they saw them again.

The twins decided to wander about the house, which, in the gray, rainy light, seemed as calm and ordinary as any other house.

They ended up in the library, where the windows rattled as they were hit with rain. The old dog, Faithful, lay sleeping on his rug by the fireplace. Every now and then he sighed.

Melissa sat at the piano and ran her fingers across the yellowed keys. It didn't look haunted. It looked like a plain old piano.

From memory, she played the Bach piece she had heard in the night. She and her mother had spent many hours at their own piano together playing that song.

When she finished the song, she slowly breathed in through her nose. No lilacs. Had she imagined it?

Already she missed her piano back home. She missed her mother, too.

This piano -- Miss Elizabeth's piano -- was a bit out of tune and a few keys stuck, but it wasn't too bad. She would ask Grandma if she could have it tuned. She played the song again, slowly, lightly, the way she had heard it in the night.

Brian was busy looking around the room. He pulled the dusty old family Bible from the desk and began to look through it. Like the piano, it had belonged to Miss Elizabeth, too. Brian had always liked reading the inscriptions in the beginning, where all the names were marked in old-fashioned script. The first entry, written in fancy script, was "Simon O'Donnell and Elizabeth Mackenzie, married 1848." Then he saw "George Mackenzie O'Donnell, born 1850" and "Simon O'Donnell, died 1851."

He found his own name next to Melissa's. His parents' names were there, and his grandparents' as well. He could not find anyone named John.

The doorbell chimed. They heard Grandma open the front door and speak to someone. In the hall they could see her hanging up a wet yellow raincoat.

"Go on in," Grandma said.

A girl about their age scuttled into the library. She had curly black hair and skin the color of toffee.

"Hi," she said. "I'm Amy. I live next door." She talked fast and was full of energy.

"Hi," the twins said.

"I heard you playing the piano," Amy said to Melissa. "You're pretty good. That sounds like Bach."

"Yes. Thanks," Melissa said. "You like music?"

Amy nodded. "I play the violin."

"How old are you?"

She was ten, as they were, and they all would be in the same fifth-grade class at school. Both twins felt relieved. Now they knew one other person, and she was nice.

The Carsons -- Amy, her parents, and her older brother -- had moved across town to their house when summer began. So Amy would be new at their school, too. Her mother taught Sunday school, she said. And her father, a history teacher, and her brother were volunteers at the history park on weekends. They were pioneers.

"I'm sure you'll meet them," she said. "Sometimes they wear their costumes."

Outside, Amy's mother drove into the driveway and honked the horn.

"I've got to go. My mom's taking me to the library," she said. "But I'll see you around. I like to visit this house."

"It's a funny old place," Brian said cautiously, remembering last night.

"Yes, funny things happen around here," Amy said. "But your grandma said this house was built in 1849, which makes it --" she squeezed her eyes shut and figured in her head "-- almost 150 years old. So I wouldn't be surprised by anything, if I were you." She waved again. "Well, bye. See you tomorrow." She turned, grabbed her raincoat, and with a flash of yellow was gone.

"She's pretty smart," Brian said.

As soon as Amy left, Melissa took down Grandpa's book of old maps of Virginia. "Maybe this will help us," she said. She flipped through it until she found an 1850s map of "Big Lick," and sat down to study it.

Brian looked at the Bible again. Gently he started turning the brittle pages. "I still think all that heaven stuff was somebody's Bible lesson," he said. "But maybe I'll find a clue in here."

One page was marked with a dried lilac. "What's this? It's in . . . Psalm 23."

Melissa was just about to say that it was the same passage as on the map, when someone in the doorway spoke.

"The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want,'" he said. At the sound of the gentle voice, Faithful woke and thumped his tail.

They looked up and there was a young man, about 13 years old. He looked a lot like Amy, with curly black hair and light brown skin. He smiled. He was wearing a long-sleeved, baggy white shirt with dark blue pants and heavy black shoes. "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil: for thou are with me,'" he quoted. "Everyone knows that one."

"That's right," Brian said. "Hi. I'm Brian. This is Melissa."

"Yes, I know," he replied. "Hello."

"We just met Amy," Melissa said. "You must be her brother. I like your clothes."

"Thank you," the young man said, smiling. "Welcome." He knelt to stroke Faithful's head. The dog closed his eyes in joy and lifted his chin.

"You play the piano quite well," said the young man to Melissa. "I have always liked that song."

"Thanks," Melissa replied.

"Well, I must be going," said their visitor, as he gave the dog one last pat and stood up. "I'll see you soon."

And, as quickly as he had come, he was gone.