With a snort, she wiped her hands on a napkin, assessing the angry, red scratches on her hands. Nothing oozed. In a few days, she’d heal. If she had access to an antibiotic cream, she’d improve faster. The unglamorous start to her return only solidified her resolve.
Without Dad to block her, she could finally take on a real role in the business. Even if it was a little late. A decade was a long absence. She had felt every second of it, her heart hanging back on her home shores. But she wasn’t leaving again. A warm meal convinced her she had the wherewithal to claim it all. Now. She finished eating, changed into her nightgown, and turned off her phone. She grabbed her pocket flashlight, holding the pink cylinder in her mouth as she worked.
She powered on LED battery votive candles in three glass lanterns and hooked each to a rope, climbing the spiral staircase to adjust each lantern and double-check the line’s strength. During the day, she’d set up a pulley system. Her plan was simple. Create a ghostly light show with just enough lanterns to grab attention but not too many to make it seem suspicious. She couldn’t have planned the weather better. With the thick cloud cover, the lights would pop against the dark night.
She had owned the props long before she came up with her current scheme, ordering the accessories for staging photos at her previous address. Her roommates hadn’t put up any fuss about her leaving. She’d found a subletter among the other coffee shop employees to cover the last three months of the lease. If anything, her roommates liked the new roomie better than her. They definitely had more in common with the younger woman.
Ashley had been something of an elder stateswoman at age thirty-three, seven years older than the college best friends who put an ad in the paper that she accepted. Or, perhaps more accurately, she was a living, breathing cautionary tale. She proved every parental fear justified. From the comparative literature degree she’d earned but never quite adapted to a real-world job, to her failed young marriage; if a parent advised against a rash choice, Ashley proved why the choice was doomed. For the first time in years, she’d made the right choice. Now she needed to keep that positive momentum going.
Buttoning up her high collar, she adjusted the sleeves of the gown. She’d owned one like this in her childhood when she’d been obsessed withAnne of Green Gables. That was the same age she’d been when she first started daydreaming about a ghost haunting the property. She wasn’t scared of the idea but electrified by it. A chance to continue her life’s pursuit from beyond the grave? Yes, please.
She had spent a whole summer sneaking into the attic to set ghost traps of her own invention. Long before the town had reliable internet, she dug up what information she could find about disappearances or deaths on the property at the local library. Surprisingly, she found nothing. Given the history of the Inn, she expected at least one tragedy or accident on the grounds.
But she remained undeterred and switched her focus to fiction. She read gothic romances and gleaned the importance of the attic to any phantom regardless of the place of their death. With her research, she developed a flawless plan. She could see when the surface was disrupted if she covered the floor with either paint or flour. With candles set around the room, she’d have both a talisman against any bad spirits and a way to monitor any disturbances in the air. Images of flickering flames stoked her imagination.
Her scientific study would have given definitive proof. Her questions would have been answered. Christopher was the unexpected hitch in her otherworldly experiment. Instead of helping her carry six boxes of votive candles and three ten-pound bags of flour, he watched with a scowl. He sat cross-legged on the floor at the base of the rickety, pull-down stairs to the attic. She counted to ten when she finished her last trip to the supply closet to acquire her necessary supplies. From the corner of her eye, she spotted him as he entered the attic. He must have followed her to snoop.
She set the last candle in its place and realized she hadn’t grabbed a matchbook. The second her feet hit the carpet below, her dad grabbed her from behind. Her father yelled like he never had before. Christopher hid in the corner, like she wouldn’t know he was there, and had ratted her out to her dad. Afterward, she spent the rest of the day cleaning the attic from top to bottom. She hadn’t had to suffer alone. Her tattletale had offered his assistance then. She had given him the silent treatment, ignoring his protests that he had acted out of concern.
When she reached the easternmost turret, near the window overlooking the lake and the lighthouse, however, she experienced an odd sensation. Her skin suddenly chilled, and the quiet in the attic became oppressive. Maybe she could pause her anger for a moment.
“If I were a ghost, I’d hide there.” With half an hour of quiet, her voice squeaked from disuse.
Had he heard her?
She glanced over her shoulder.
He straightened, dumping a full dustpan of flour and dust into the garbage they’d lugged up the steps.
“Right over there, you know?” She pointed to the lighthouse. She knew the lighthouse was fake. But why couldn’t a ghost choose that spot? It had a superb view and a cozy setting on its own little island.
He rolled his eyes. “Stop pretending. Ghosts aren’t real.”
“Why do you keep insisting they aren’t? You’re smart, but you don’t know everything. Plenty of stuff can’t be explained.”
“No one has ever reported seeing a ghost on the property. Ever. Ghosts don’t just happen.”
She shrugged. “Maybe sometimes they do.”
“No. They need a purpose.”
She crossed her arms and stuck out her bottom lip.
“I’m serious, Ashley. Stop it. Drop it.”
And roll?Usually, her pouting worked its charm on him, convincing him to see her side of things. But that day, Christopher held firm, and she didn’t push him too far. That might have been the only time she didn’t keep up her side of an argument until he surrendered. And it stuck with her. He didn’t always agree. If only she’d known then that his love had limits, she would have saved herself a lot of pain by not falling so completely head over heels.
Over the years, she had floated the idea of a ghost on the property a few times. Christopher had never taken the bait. She hadn’t been able to shake off the experience or her belief. While she had eventually conceded that her imagination impeded the true scientific method, she wasn’t eager to repeat the experience for research. A person could live the rest of their life fearing a mysterious entity.
Although, now she supposed she was becoming the mysterious first wife figure she’d long feared.
“Okay. Here it goes,” she told no one.
A cold feeling settled over her shoulders.Dread? Fear? Something else?When it came to fear, she was her own worst enemy, part of the downside of her enthusiastic creativity.
She grabbed one end of the cord she’d looped through the staircase. She had tied knots to secure the lanterns on either side of the hooks. Her plan was simple. Pull the cord back and forth, lifting and shaking the three lights.
Besides not getting attention, her only real concern was broken glass cutting her air mattress. Sleeping on the ground wasn’t ideal. She tugged on the cord, the votives dancing. At the same moment, an icy breeze howled past the lighthouse.
