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“What did you do? ‘Stupid’ doesn’t sound like my brilliant granddaughter.”

“I… think I agreed to go out with Ian,” Cam said, wincing. “Which is ridiculous, since I’m going home right after the fete and it’s not like there’s any point. It couldn’t go anywhere.”

Birdie cocked her eyebrow, and the corners of her eyes wrinkled. “Do you really want my advice?”

Cam nodded.

“Don’t worry so much about what’s going to happen, or what’s not going to happen, or what could happen,” Birdie said. “I know you’re not a child, but when you’re my age, you will realize that thirty-four is so very young. You should just have a little fun. You’re young and beautiful. He’s young and handsome. Maybe you have no future with him, but in my experience, the future has a way of happening all on its own, no matter what we think of it. Why don’t you just let things unfold?”

Cam knew her grandmother meant well. Still, “letting things unfold” had never been her specialty. She liked calendars that told you what was happening and when. Plans. Lists with items to check off. Recipes that told you exactly how long to bake something and at what temperature. And she had certainly never wanted to fall in love, which seemed to have a way of clouding people’s judgment. Making them do stupid things. At least, that’s how she had always felt before. But her time in Silver Cove was starting to make her feel discombobulated, like the firm ground she was used to standing on had gone soft.

As she warmed up yesterday’s leftover soup for her and Birdie’s lunch, Cam felt snippets of her dream from the night before come back. There had been a woman, petite and dark-haired, wearing the pink dress that Cam had found amid the white elephant donations. She didn’t speak, but Cam knew the woman had wanted something from her. Cam ladled the soup into bowls and tried to shake off the feeling that something strange was starting to happen to her.

CHAPTER NINE

ADA

Remember how I told you I could wait? How I truly thought I could bide my time? Well, I might have overestimated my patience (Marshall always did say that impatience was an unattractive trait in a woman). The truth is, I’m starting to get a bit agitated. I thought things were going well for me when a young woman apparently named Cam came to my room or, rather, the place I had started thinking of as mine since I was the only one there all day, every day, while the others flitted in and out, arranging clothing and those other strange things (which I determined were electrical appliances you could use in your kitchen to do all sorts of things. Isn’t that just fabulous?).

I was elated when she put my cookbook under her coat and walked right out the door, which meant that I could (had to, I suppose) go along with her. Finally, I thought, freedom! Now we were getting somewhere. As she walked down Main Street, I was able to flit around her. So many things were unfamiliar, like the automobiles that passed, whipping around faster than even that Rolls-Royce Phantom I’d once gotten a ride in when I visited my cousins in Richmond. Marshall wouldn’t buy one in a million years, of course, even though I occasionally suggested that all the good families were and maybe we should think about it, just to show that the Merriweathers could keep up with the times. What I wouldn’t have given to hop in one right then, with the top down and the breeze blowing through my hair. Anyway, the woman, Cam, brought me to a house that I soon recognized as Captain Carr’s old house above the harbor.

But let me tell you, the woman, Cam, is trying my patience, what little of it I have. For starters, there’s her appearance. Truly, I don’t mean to sound shallow, but she is such a mouse! She’s got dynamite looks, not that you would know it—a good little waist and legs that should definitely be on display instead of stashed away in those trousers, though I love that women can wear those. They must be wonderful for tromping around outside! She wears her hair up in a bun like a dried-up old matron, and her clothes? Well, I got a glimpse of what women are wearing these days, and let me tell you, if I could have worn those things, so shimmering, so fun, so revealing, I wouldn’t be caught dead in that ratty old sweater that looks like something a fisherman would wear. And on the telephone (they are so tiny now, with no cords, and you put them in your pocket, isn’t that clever?) she’s so meek, I just want to give her a swift kick and tell her to get herself a backbone. It’s 2025, I want to tell her. You don’t have to be so agreeable! And through some eavesdropping and reading these texts, which are wonderful things that pop up at all times on the telephone (though I don’t count any of what I do as eavesdropping—I’m a ghost, what else am I supposed to do?), I’ve determined that her line of work is writing cookbooks that she doesn’t actually put her name to. I found this appalling, since nowadays, it seems that all the reasons a woman might have not to sign her name to a book have mercifully gone out the window. So as far as being the kind of gal to help me accomplish my mission, put me down as skeptical.

Not that I have a choice as far as my human accomplice goes. I’ve been shouting at her, although she doesn’t seem to be able to hear me. But I have reason to think I might be getting through to her. One time, when the very handsome man who seems to be making repairs to the house asked her to go fishing with him—which sounded like a delightful time, and why wouldn’t you go courting with a man like that?—I practically screamed at her to say yes, and she did. Perhaps that’s progress! Better yet, it seems that I can communicate with her more directly when she cooks one of the dishes in my cookbook.

As soon as I realized she might be able to hear me, I told her what she needed to do.

CHAPTER TEN

It was happening again, Cam realized.

Later that night, she was standing over the stove in Birdie’s kitchen when the whispering sound came back. She was making another recipe from the odd antique cookbook, this one for a cheese soufflé. Cam knew she needed to focus on making recipes for Izzy’s cookbook, but she felt so drawn to A. Poulson’s words. Cooking the roux and whipping the eggs had put her in a good mood, just as it had the night before. And then there it was again, just like the last time. This time, it was louder. It was definitely a human whisper, only she couldn’t make out the words. Cam felt a presence in the room, too. Parsley seemed to as well. He was running around the room excitedly, the way he did when a visitor arrived.

“Who’s there?” Cam asked, feeling ridiculous. Of course there was no one else in the house. She must be imagining things. But the whispers didn’t stop.

Impulsively, Cam put down her whisk and walked over to the table where the cookbook lay and shut it. The kitchen went silent. Cam waited a moment to be sure and then opened the book again. The sound was back.

She must be going insane. That was the only explanation. Maybe it was all the stress and worry—over Izzy, over the house, over Birdie, even the fete. Anxiety could do terrible things to you, Cam had read. She needed more sleep. Better sleep. Just as she was swearing to herself that she would download one of those meditation apps and pick up a bottle of melatonin, Cam finally caught some of the words that seemed to be swirling around the kitchen.

“Find it” came the scratchy whisper.

“Find it?” Cam repeated, spinning around, looking for the source of the voice.

“Find it!” The voice was louder this time. It was a woman.

“What… what am I supposed to find?” Cam asked the air, drawing her chef’s knife and brandishing it at the air around her. Whatever was happening, it was the one weapon Cam felt comfortable with. “Who are you? What do you want?”

There were more unintelligible sounds.

“Leave me alone!” Cam said in frustration to the unseen speaker. In a panic, she rushed back to the table and slammed the cookbook shut. And just like that, the room was silent again.

Cam’s heart was pounding. What the heck was going on? Had she just heard from a ghost? No. There was no such thing. She was imagining things, and she just needed a solid night’s rest. She shoved the book onto a shelf and dumped the soufflé down the sink.

The next morning, Cam inhaled the scent of marsh and cedar and tried to put the events of the night before—the weird stuff in the kitchen and another dream of a woman in a pink dress, just like the one she’d had the previous night—out of her mind. Which was made easier by the fact that she was sitting next to Ian on the bench of his small fishing skiff on a beautiful clear, cold morning. It had been ages since she had been out on the water, and even though the air was sharp, the sun was shining, sending an orange glow over the smooth, glassy waters that buoyed them, and Cam turned her face up to the sky to soak it in.

If this actually was a date, she had done a truly terrible job dressing for it. She was wearing a puffy coat of Birdie’s and thick wool socks with her boots and jeans. A handknit beanie cap topped off her ensemble, and Cam could tell her nose and cheeks were pink from the cold. Definitely not sexy, unless you had some kind of stevedore kink.

“I brought coffee,” Cam said, reaching into the canvas bag she’d brought and pulling out a thermos. “Black, like you like.”