Jack, as usual, got right to the point. "We've been had."

Diana studied the rundown, rather unfriendly-looking house at the end of the drive and stifled a small sigh. This was to be their weekend getaway home-away-from-home for the next few days. The once proud plantation estate, which was surrounded by ancient oaks that dominated rambling unkempt grounds, had an angry, accusatory air about it, as if to say, "You did this to me, you and your kind.".

"Maybe the inside isn't as bad as it looks on the outside," she offered.

Jack cut her a skeptical glance. "Right".

Ian had been uncharacteristically silent since she had stopped the car. Diana peeked into the rear view mirror to where her brother sat in the back seat and had to grin. Ian's soon-to-be manly jaw looked to be in danger of becoming totally unhinged and fall from his face.

Diana dug the brochure from her purse and read out loud. "Treat yourself to a true adventure."

"Translation: watch out for the bats as you find your way to the outhouse at midnight."

Her lips twitched as she continued reading. "Experience the lost charm of the old south."

"Emphasis on the old. And doesn't 'lost charm' mean it can't be found? Like I said, we've been had."

Diana put the car in drive and resumed bouncing and scraping down the heavily rutted drive. The house was reminding her of something she'd heard once. Then it came to her. "Last night I dreamed I was at Mandalay again", she quoted.

Ian spoke for the first time since their arrival. "Yeah and if Alfred Hitchcock pops his head out from around that tree, I'm heading back to town."

Diana glanced again at Ian in her mirror who was staring moodily at the old house growing larger in their view with each jarring bounce. Each passenger in the car as well as the driver was soaking with sweat as the air conditioner struggled and failed to compete with Louisiana humidity in August. Spanish moss, hanging from low branches, occasionally scraped the top of the car. The interior reeked of the mosquito repellant they had applied to themselves earlier.

Diana decided to blame Jack. It had been his idea, after all, to respond to the call of a "haunted treasure mansion", although she was honest enough with herself to admit that it hadn't taken a lot of coaxing to get her to agree. Each of them possessed a thirst for adventure and new experiences, which had been the foundation of a friendship that stretched back to the sixth grade. They'd been best friends since the day Mrs. Harriman had paired them up as square-dancing partners; through the years they had discovered many shared interests, not the least of which was a desire to try the new and unknown. They had tried to instill the same attitude into Ian, but had only met with partial success. In fact it was Jack's concern that Ian was in danger of turning into a fuddy-duddy at age nineteen by concentrating all his energies on his college studies that had prompted this trip.

Jack had bounded into Diana's house, vibrating with excitement and waving a brochure. "ATTENTION!" he read, "Can you find the treasure hidden inside Spanish Oak Plantation? Do you dare brave the ghosts that roam the halls? Treat yourself to true adventure. Experience the lost charm of the old south. Fine dining. Well-appointed rooms. Entertainment. Immerse yourself in a forgotten era. Come to Spanish Oak."

"It's a scam."

"No, it's legit. I looked it up on the internet. There is such a place, it is reputed to be haunted and there is a story about lost treasure associated with the house. According to the article I read, some guy from up north bought it and is turning it into a weekend resort, patterned after those mystery weekends that were so popular a while back, only his gimmick is ghosts and treasure." Jack finally noticed the pile of wood and glue on the dining room table in front of Diana. "What the hell is that?"

"It's a toothpick sculpture."

"OK, but why?"

"I'm exploring my creativity."

"By making a blob out of toothpicks?"

Jinx T. Cat sat at Diana's elbow, surveying the scattered slithers of wood all around him. With studied nonchalance he batted a toothpick off the edge of the table. Diana caught it neatly without so much as a glance and attached it to the top of her sculpture at a 45 degree angle. She cocked her head and studied it.

"If you're waiting for that thing to speak to you, D, I think it's mute."

"Hmmm."

"Let's get back to the treasure house. I think this is just the thing we need to get Ian out of his rut."

"I don't know, Jack, it doesn't really seem like Ian's thing."

"That's just it. I haven't noticed him having a thing. At least not lately. Really, D, I feel like we've failed him. All he does is study."

"Well, he's dedicated. He's really keen on becoming a sports psychologist."

"Which is great, but all work and no play. The only other thing he seems to be interested in is our social lives or lack thereof."

As if on cue, Ian sauntered in the back door, gently kicking Jinx away before the cat could complete his mad dash out the door.

"Hi guys. You know, Diana, I keep hoping you'll start telling me to knock before I come in here."

"If that's what you want", Diana replied absently as she added another toothpick to her sculpture. "But why?"

"Because if you start telling me to knock before I come waltzing in the door, I'll know that finally you'll be doing something that you wouldn't want your little brother busting in on."

"Such as - ?"

"You know", Ian said wagging his eyebrows. He dropped his voice and finished in a dramatic tone. "Men."

"He means sex, D."

"Well, now that you mention it."

Diana glared at both of them. "Excuse me, when did I suddenly become a spinster old maid?"

Ian grinned. "Be honest, when was the last time you went out?"

"I go out with Jack all the time."

"I don't mean Jack. Jack's your best buddy and mine. Jack's family. You know, I mean with", again with the dramatic tone, "a man."

"I'm sure Jack resents not being included in the category."

Ian rolled his eyes. "You are being deliberately dense. All right I'll use simple words so you'll understand. When was the last time you were on a date?" A pause. "A hot date", he amended.

Diana opened her mouth and then closed it again, thinking. It *had* been a long time, though she was loathe to admit the reason, at least to Ian. Diana had been mother and father as well as big sister to Ian since their parents had died in a car crash nine years earlier and Jack, God bless him, had stepped in as the predominant male role model in her brother's life. Money had often been tight, but through sheer will and creative determination Diana had managed to make a comfortable living for them both. But recently college tuition had been taking a huge bite out of the household budget, prompting longer hours spent at her home-based business. Dating, going through the ritual of getting to know new people, took too much time. It was just easier to hang out with Jack.

"Earth to Diana, Earth to Diana. Sorry, that wasn't meant to be a stumper."

Diana's eyes twinkled mischievously. "What was the question?"

Ian heaved a huge sigh worthy of the theatre. "When did you last go on a hot date?"

"Let's see, nineteen seventy - "

"Har har, hardee har har." Ian cocked his head in thought. "It was Jeffrey, wasn't it?"

"What, are you keeping track?"

"I worry about you. Sure I keep track. So, whatever happened to Jeffrey? I know you liked him."

"He didn't understand my sense of humor."

"Who does? OK, so what about Ronnie?"

"He decided I was too smart for him."

"He was right. Stephen?"

"I'm too adventurous."

"Danny?"

"I'm too offbeat."

"Kirby?"

"I'm too easygoing."

"Allen?"

Diana, totally irritated with this line of questioning, especially now that he'd gone all the way back to her senior prom date, gave Ian a disgusted look. "He didn't like my shoes."

Ian stared at her. "You're kidding."

Diana sighed. "Yes, I'm kidding."

"Diana, have you noticed that you keep picking guys that can't appreciate you?"

"Or maybe I really am too 'too'."

"You're not the problem." Brother and sister turned to look at Jack, surprised by the unusually serious tone to his remark. "There's nothing wrong with you." He then went back to studying the tips of his shoes.

There was a beat of charged silence. Diana felt unaccountably warm and turned away to scratch Jinx under his chin. Ian, nobody's fool, looked at both of them speculatively.

Not wanting to continue this conversation, but needing to say something, Diana cleared her throat. "Remember what Daddy used to say? Don't hide your light under a bushel? He told me that once when I was twelve and I came home crying because Billy Keene told me no boy is going to like a girl who was an egghead."

Jack looked up at that. "You liked Billy Keene? He and his sisters used to eat Crayons!"

"I realized later," she continued with a glare, "that the real reason was because I could run faster than most of the boys in school. But that's beside the point."

"Hallelujah, she has a point."

"I had decided that if I wanted the boys in school to like me, I had to pretend to be dumb. But Daddy said, 'Never hide your light under a bushel, Chick. Never let anyone make you deny who you are. A very smart man once said to your own self be true. Maybe you don't understand that right now. And maybe some of the boys at school don't appreciate you right now, but someday there will be others who will. And those boys, Chick, will be true blue and solid gold.' I took his advice to heart. So I guess I'm still looking for gold."

Ian could sense a sudden tension in Jack at these words, a tension Diana seemed to be totally unaware of, and he almost blurted out, "What about Jack?" But Jack changed the subject abruptly.

"Which brings me to my point." Jack began brandishing his brochure again. "Ian, I think you and I should take your sister out to this haunted treasure mansion for a long weekend. The ghosts won't know what hit them."

Ian surprised both of them by readily agreeing, each missing the glint of purpose in his eyes.

There had been a definite undercurrent in the conversation that day, Diana decided, as the car finally jolted over its last rut, but she had been unwilling to examine it too closely. Turning the key off, she pushed her thoughts to the back of her mind as she climbed out of the car and stretched the kinks out of her back. The 60 miles they had driven to get here had been nothing. The last 100 feet had been murder.

Ian scrambled out of the car, stretched mightily and began dragging overnight cases from the back. Jack leaned against the passenger door and stared morosely at the house. "What kind of fine dining do you think we're apt to find in there?"

Diana leaned comfortably against him and he rested his chin on the top of her head. "This was your idea."

"Don't remind me", he muttered.

A small knot of people had already arrived and were clustered around a gate, apparently locked, set in an elaborately worked wrought iron fence. One, a roly-poly man of about sixty-five, broke away and headed in their direction, bristling with vitality and good-humor.

"Well I swear to John! I thought the way the ad read this was really going to be something. But this place! This place don't amount to a hill of beans in a corn field. Howdy folks, I'm Glenn Bailey from Oklahoma."

"I'm Diana Stanley. This is my brother Ian. This is Jack Raimie."

"Well, I tell you. We all look like sensible folks. What are we doing here?"

"I guess looks can be deceiving," said Ian.

"Out of the mouth of babes. No offense meant, son. But at my age, everyone under the age of 40 is a mere babe."

"None taken. At my age, anyone over the age of 30 is old."

Diana thumped him on the head.

"Oww!"

Glenn chuckled. "Now, children. Over by the gate, the one on the left is my grandson Martin. He's fourteen, though you couldn't tell it from here."

"He's a big kid."

"That he is. Only a freshman and already on his varsity football team. I declare, if we don't think he's something on a stick back home. The other two, best that I can tell, are honest-to-God treasure hunters. I figured the thing about treasure was just a gimmick to get rubes like us to plop our nickel down, but these guys are taking it seriously. They've got equipment in their car and everything, like they expect to dig the place up."

The murmuring conversation at the gate stopped abruptly. Diana stepped forward to get a better look at the front of the house. A distinguished-looking, elderly man was coming out of the door with a large ring of keys and heading towards the gate. Diana looked back at Jack. The bad temper of earlier was gone and his eyes were shining with anticipation. Diana grinned at him and he winked. "Are you ready, Freddy?"

"I was born ready."

Continued