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EDGAR PUSHED THE DOOR OPEN in frustration as Rebecca approached the entrance to the house. She was bathed in the light shed from the lamp above, and Edgar’s face was illuminated as well. His bushy eyebrows were drawn together in a V, his hair askew, his clothes rumpled. She didn’t know where he had come from, but she had been exposed in her secret dalliance with the lake and the lake’s ghostly memories.

“You’re like to get yourself killed.” Edgar’s grumble was more of a growl as he stepped aside to allow Rebecca entrance.

She caught him poking his head back into the night, looking to the left and the right as if he himself had been the one sneaking out and hoping no one had seen. He shut the door firmly, then waddled into the kitchen behind Rebecca. His legs were arthritic and bowed, his hips twisted, lending toward imbalance, but the elderly man was still intimidating as he locked eyes with her sheepish expression.

“You know we’ve black bears in these parts, and wolves, and even a cougar now and then. You want to be eaten in the night, your innards gnawed on like a dead deer’s?”

Rebecca’s intuition told her wild animals weren’t truly the root of Edgar’s warning. Still, she shook her head. “No. I’m sorry.” She felt like a child standing before her reprimanding father.

Edgar’s jaw was set, his agitation evident. “You didn’t bruise yourself, you know. Someone was out to get you, an’ you can’t expect they’re just going to throw their hands up and go ‘oh shucks’ if they catch wind of your being alive.”

Rebecca reached for the back of a chair to steady herself. She had not forgotten. She had not forgotten anything since Edgar had found her broken atop Annabel’s grave.

Edgar nodded as he saw the realization on her face. “See? You don’t know who’s out there hunting you. Any one of them have teeth they’d love to sink in and finish you off with. Wolf or man, they’ll tear you to shreds. He nodded toward her abdomen. “And it’s no secret you’re caring for two. Best act like a mother and be responsible with the life God gave you.”

The lake-grizzled man was finished now, and he turned his back to her to move to the stove and pick up the kettle. He poured black coffee into a mug and plunked it down before her, motioning Rebecca to sit down.

“Warm your insides,” he directed, this time his tone gentler.

Having weathered what Rebecca hoped to be the worst of Edgar’s anger, she did as he asked and slipped onto a chair. Her stomach was churning with anticipation that was now stifled by truth. Echoes of shouting and criticism vibrated through her with unbidden resurgence, and she knew then that fierce anger was a part of her past. She shrank against retribution, and yet her soul fought containment. Even now she stifled irritation that Niina had so obviously spoken to Edgar of Rebecca’s supposed condition. She preferred to keep this quiet for now, at least until Rebecca herself was certain of Niina’s claim regarding the babe.

“Told ya to drink up.” Edgar sank onto a chair opposite her and gestured at her coffee.

Rebecca lifted the cup and took a sip, wincing at the brew’s bitterness.

“Tell me the truth. What were you doing out there?” Edgar cheeks were reddened from the wind. There was a desperation in the way he drummed his fingers on the table. Rebecca could sense he was testing her, though for what, she wasn’t sure. He gave no allowance for Rebecca to evade his question as he leaned forward across the table.

“I...” She paused. Dare she share her flimsy recollection and the haunting words that still replayed in her mind even now? Her vision of Kjersti, so strong in her memory and yet so clouded. It had been real! So very real. And yet it had not. Could not have been. Kjersti was dead. Which could only lead Rebecca to conclude that the woman at the end of her bed, the one who had spoken such odd and cryptic words to her, was also dead. A ghost. This ghost had followed Rebecca to the lake and disappeared into its depths. A person simply did not announce that she was visited by the dead, that she was nurtured by the dead, or that her only clear memory was that she was someone’s worst reminder.

Edgar’s eyes narrowed, an awareness touching his features. His voice was more hushed when he spoke this time, and more knowing. “You saw her, didn’t you?”

“Her?” Rebecca stilled. The old man could read minds?

“Annabel.” The way he spoke the name was almost reverent, but it was also tinged with fear.

Rebecca couldn’t tear her eyes from Edgar’s.

He nodded and sipped his coffee, still locking gazes with her. “She comes at night. Did you hear her? Did she call to you?”

Rebecca remained wordless. The woman at the end of her bed was Annabel? The grave on which Rebecca had collapsed? That woman had been dead for over two decades. Why would she haunt Rebecca? Or had a bond been formed between Rebecca and Annabel as she’d lain prostrate over the earthen tomb? Had Annabel’s spirit determined that Rebecca was hers to guard, to watch over?

Edgar accepted Rebecca’s silence by releasing her from his stare. “She’s in your mind, Rebecca.” Edgar’s words wove through Rebecca with a warning attached to them. “Once she’s there, she won’t leave ya. She’ll fill your mind and then your soul.” He breathed heavily, his fingers thrumming the tabletop. “She’s as insistent as the lake, she is. Annabel pounds away at your heart like the waves pound the shore.” Edgar clamped his mouth shut, staring at his fingers that he stopped from their insistent drumming on the table. “She’ll not leave ya.” He lifted his aged eyes, staring deeply into hers.

Edgar’s stare sucked Rebecca in with the power of his belief.

Just when she’d begun to feel as though the lighthouse was safe, it seemed to become dangerous again. Yet something inside her was tied to the lighthouse, and she didn’t know if it was simply because it was all she knew now, or if something in her past had led her here in the first place.

Yet no one wished to be visited by ghosts they didn’t know, didn’t understand, and didn’t know the intentions of. Least of all her who had awakened tonight in the world of the dead, about which she knew nothing. Nothing at all.

Edgar cleared his throat and shook his head slowly. “She comes out at night from time to time, Annabel does. She’s a phantom, and has been since she died twenty years ago.”

“Did you know her in life?” Rebecca dared to ask, fingering the handle on her tin mug.

“Annabel doesn’t claim any living person. She’s a manifestation that claims you and then never sets you free.” He leveled a stare at Rebecca again. “The lake took her life, they say, but did it? Or was it something more?”

“You mean—did someone aid in her death?” Rebecca asked, all the while feeling a strange kinship with Annabel. Despite her inability to remember the events, she knew how it felt to be hunted, to feel as though someone saw you as a chilling reminder . But a reminder of what? Of what they couldn’t have? Of what they wanted her to be?

“Heartbreak,” Edgar said. “That’s what aided in Annabel’s death.” He took a long, noisy sip of his coffee and looked out the lone window behind Rebecca. His gaze reflected the light from the lighthouse that shone across the lake. “She’s a mystery to this place, Rebecca. No one understands her. She’ll appear one day, and no one will know where she came from. Then she vanishes into the lake, leaving behind a vague feelin’ that you should understand somethin’—but ya don’t.”

The parallel was eerie. Rebecca wrapped her arms around herself and considered her words carefully before posing the question. “Does anyone know how she died?”

A sad smile touched Edgar’s mouth and made his beard and mustache twitch. “Does anyone know the truth about anyone’s story? Life is just a busted-up vessel, its pieces floating to shore. Years later, folks try to patch them together, but the life’s story is never what it really was. The only one who can retell it truthfully is the one who lived it. When you die, Rebecca, the truth dies with you. All that’s left is speculation.” He shook his head and sipped his coffee. “And there’s not much comfort in that, now, is there?”

A NNABEL

KNOW ME AFTER I AM GONE.

Chase after me in the wind—the memory of me.

Catch my spirit between your fingers and I will caress your skin as I pass through.

Be wistful about what could have been.

Remember the melancholy of grief.

Recall the chilling and the killing, the taking of life, and the last first look into the eyes of the dying.

Because I know you, after I am gone.

I will chase after you in the wind and catch your spirit while you sleep.

I will be wistful for what I have no longer, and I will not sever my soul from yours.

Where you will be, I will be too.

In the wind.

In the water.

In the light.

I will come, once I am dead. And you will know I am there. Watching. Waiting. Remembering.