Island out of time. The island of Cay Fantasma, in the West Indies, was only a few miles off the coast of Jamaica, yet it was like another world -- a sixteenth-century world ruled by plantation owner Eric Canmeer and his invalid wife, Grace, from a three-hundred-year-old fortress castle called "The Citadel." Into this anachronistic world came Lori Price, a lovely chestnut-haired product of the twentieth century, as governess and companion to the Vanmeer's precocious teen-aged daughter. Hilga Vanmeer had a flirtatious interest in "older men" -- like wanderer Tony Wood and her cousin, plantation overseer Phil Parker -- and a passion for the rituals of obeah ... voodoo! Lori didn't believe in black magic -- though Hilga seemed to have a disturbing ability to walk through locked doors! And she didn't believe in vengeful voodoo spirits. But she could not ignore them after someone -- or something -- tried to kill her.