DREADFUL SORRY

The old song replays in Molly's head, cropping up too often for coincidence—``You are lost and gone forever,/Dreadful sorry, Clementine.'' Meanwhile, fearful dreams seize her at night and, after she nearly drowns, begin to haunt her as visions by day. When she goes to stay with her newly remarried father in an old house in Maine, the fragments and trepidations begin to fall alarmingly into place: Molly sees the world through the eyes of Clementine, niece of a family who lived in the house 80 years before, who drowned with a local boy while running away. At the core of the tale is a nicely realized romance between Molly and a boy who shares her visitations. Reiss slips between past and present with a callous alacrity that is wondrously effective; readers will buy into the unfolding revelations while gaining a true sense of Molly's tenuous grip on events. But the prevailing sharp characterizations, lyrical style, and good pacing contrast with some passages that are just not as deft; conspicuously absent are the reactions of Molly's savvy, down-to-earth mother to the otherworldly aspects of her daughter's dilemma. Still, overall, another fine spellbinder from the author of Time Windows (1991). (Fiction. 12+)