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R EBECCA

But our love was stronger by far than the love of those who were older than we...

Annabel Lee

ANNABEL’S LIGHTHOUSE SPRING, 1874

“THEY WERE BOLD ENOUGH to come and take her from the lighthouse. Right under our noses!”

Edgar’s growl traveled into the room, where Rebecca lay propped against pillows, feeling useless and shaken still, even though she’d slept safely through the night and under Niina’s ministrations.

“Shush.” Niina spoke louder than the woman probably realized. “Abel says they were looking for papers. Do you know anything about that?”

Edgar’s grunt was his answer.

“If we can help her remember, then maybe he will leave her alone,” Niina continued in a hoarse whisper. “Let her live her life.”

Edgar snorted. “Not with the baby. If he finds out about that, then everything could change.” Hatred laced Edgar’s voice. “We need to tell her. Enough with this addlebrained idea that we’re keeping her safe. We obviously aren’t!”

Guilt over eavesdropping gnawed at Rebecca’s insides. Yet the secrets they withheld from her chipped away at her trust in Niina, in Abel, and possibly even in Edgar—although his confession about Annabel left her feeling a bit of ownership in his own heartbreaking secrets.

“You already know what happened when Rebecca learned the truth the first time! It’s why she’s here, and why she can’t remember.” Niina’s tone grew bitter. “Besides, he doesn’t believe she’s his to begin with, does he? Why would he want the child when it isn’t his either? She’s got enough to worry about with Aaron, so why add to it?”

Silence drifted into the room, and Rebecca strained to hear in case Edgar was responding far quieter than he had been. Instead, she heard his booted steps as they charged from the lighthouse.

The interplay plagued Rebecca. Who was this he they had referred to? Their insinuations startled her into a vague recollection. A man. The argument on the outcropping. His anger. This time the memory came with words.

“You are not faithful! Not to our name! Not to anyone but yourself!”

Not faithful.

A stifling weight settled on Rebecca’s chest. The kind that sprang from guilt, from shame. She had stepped out on her husband? Was that it? Was that how she’d become with child? From another man?

She could remember now, the betrayal in the man’s voice. While she couldn’t make out his image, or remember who he was, she could hear the oppressive truth.

“You are not faithful .”

Who had she been before this all began? The very idea that she had willingly entered another man’s arms than that of her husband—it appalled her. It tightened her stomach, and the hardening of her womb mimicked what had to have been the hardening of her heart. She was a worthless woman, if that were the case, and her child the result of sin that would forever tarnish her and the child. It would be known as a bastard. She would be identified as a loose woman. That was why she had run, wasn’t it? Why she’d been chased through the woods. She’d found no mercy from her husband, no forgiveness for the sake of her babe, no covering by his name to protect the innocent unborn in light of her deeds. And she must protect whatever remained of the reputation for the sake of her brother. He couldn’t be associated with her if the babe had been illegitimately conceived!

But her flight was somehow compounded by the mysterious papers. What papers? And why would she have taken them to begin with? Why abscond with something this man—to whom she’d been unfaithful—would want? Was it retribution? A form of vengeance in lieu of his rejection?

Rebecca could not fathom that she was so vindictive, and yet here she was, recovering in a bed that was not her own, with child by a man who had no face, being hunted for something she had more than likely stolen, and barely able to remember her own brother, whom she would die to protect.

“Ah, you’re awake!” Niina’s voice was perky as she entered the room, jolting Rebecca from her internal war. She held a tray that held cookies and tea, and her short, rotund figure brought with it the scent of freshly baked bread. It was a smell that Rebecca associated with Niina now. The woman’s own perfume of sorts that lent a motherly nurturing to her persona, one that Rebecca ached to trust.

But trusting Niina brought risks that Rebecca was afraid to face. The risk of knowing the truth about herself. The risk of knowing for certain that Niina and Abel and now, more than likely, Edgar had kept the truth from her as to who she was.

“Do you feel any movement?” Niina rested her hand atop the blankets that covered Rebecca’s abdomen.

Rebecca shook her head. “Aside from a tickling sensation, no. I don’t.” Maybe the baby had died. Maybe she carried within her a lifeless form, having taken the brunt of the consequences of recent events—the brunt of the consequences of her sins. Rebecca’s breath caught.

“A tickling?” Niina’s face split into a smile. “You’re feeling the fluttering of the babe! He’s telling you he’s going to be just fine.”

“He?” Rebecca could hardly believe those little featherlight tickles were the child. Surely she would have known. Surely a mother who had conceived a child out of love would have the sense to know when the babe began to give evidence of its life. Tears of oppressive guilt wadded in her throat.

Niina was ignorant of Rebecca’s feelings. Instead, she busied herself pouring Rebecca a cup of tea from the kettle on the tray. “He or she. We won’t know until the child pokes its little face into the world, and we hear that first cry.” Niina handed Rebecca the teacup. “But I picture him as a boy.”

“Why?” Rebecca asked.

“I ... I just do. My eldest was a boy. Abel. And a daughter”—tears shone in Niina’s eyes—“well, it’s hard to imagine a girl when Kjersti left us not so long ago. It’s selfish of me, I know. I’m sorry.” She lifted the corner of her apron and dabbed at her eyes. “A boy seems hardier. Less susceptible to illness, I suppose. I wouldn’t survive another loss of a child—a babe most assuredly not.”

It was a very personal answer to a child Niina had no claims to. Rebecca could take it no longer. “Niina?”

“Hmm?”

“Who am I?”

Niina’s startled expression told Rebecca she was right to confront the truth.

She knew Niina was not going to be forthcoming. “Tell me. I know you know. I know Abel knows. Even Edgar knows more about me than I do.”

“And you remember nothing?” Niina lowered herself to the edge of the bed, her expression growing strained.

What should she tell Niina? That she remembered Kjersti most of all? That the daughter and sister so grieved over came to her in her sleep—or in spirit—and that Rebecca knew her? Or did she tell her that she knew she had a brother, that his name was Aaron? That she could barely remember more about him except for this wild assertiveness inside of her that would do anything to protect him? Or did she tell Niina of the cold words that plagued her, from the man she knew now was somehow at the root of it all? Perhaps she was to blame for it all. Maybe she was the villain, and the others were merely...

Rebecca shoved aside her swirling thoughts and gave a simple response: “I remember small things. Words said to me. Awful words that, if true, mean I’m not a good person.”

“No!” Niina’s declaration surprised Rebecca. Her eyes were stern as she raised her index finger. “Don’t let anyone tell you that you’ve made bad choices. Ever. You’ve made your choices, and you live with them because they were your choices. Not his.”

“Whose?” Rebecca asked. “Tell me who you’re talking about? Who wants me harmed for the sake of some papers? Who hates me enough to care nothing of my bearing a child?”

Niina’s chest rose and fell with a sigh. She looked at her hands and then reached out and took the teacup from Rebecca. Once she’d set it on the tray, she repositioned herself on the mattress to face Rebecca, taking Rebecca’s hands in hers and looking her in the eyes. “Your father,” she said.

It was unexpected. She had thought to hear Niina admit to Rebecca’s husband’s name. But her father ?

Niina pressed forward. “I don’t know what your few memories tell you, but the one after you is your father.”

“My father?” Rebecca asked, breathless with disbelief.

Niina searched her face for a moment before nodding. “Yes. And he will not cease coming after you until you turn over to him the papers you apparently stole.”

“What papers ?”

“We don’t know,” Niina admitted. Her grasp of Rebecca’s hands tightened, and a shadow passed over her face. “All we know is that you are the daughter of Walter Hilliard, the sister of Aaron.”

“Hilliard.” Rebecca repeated the name, recognizing it not as her own, but from the stories Edgar and Niina and Abel had told her shortly after her arrival at the lighthouse. “The man who—”

“Yes.” Her reply was curt and filled with distaste. “Hilliard, the mining baron. The man who is convinced Silvertown will become a great source of wealth.”

“And somehow...” Realization began to dawn on Rebecca. She swallowed, the truth bitter in her mouth. “Somehow I am threatening that success.”

“Yes.” Niina nodded slowly, concern etched in every crevice of her face. “Your father has never ... thought highly of you. And now, if you took something that belongs to him, something to do with his mining investments, then—”

“Then I am my father’s worst enemy,” Rebecca finished. Tears burned in her eyes.

“You’re a chilling reminder to me .”

Those words, the words that had driven her to the lakeshore, had come from her father. It was he who had stood on the rock outcropping with her, anger infused in every pore of his body. It was not her husband to whom Rebecca had been unfaithful; it was her father. She had soiled his name. She was with child by someone, and he hated her for it.

“Yes, I’m my father’s worst enemy,” Rebecca repeated in a whisper.

Niina said nothing to correct her.

Rebecca finished buttoning her dress. It was time to leave the sanctuary of the lighthouse—if she could even call it that. If she removed herself from the lighthouse, she would remove Abel, Niina, and Edgar from Hilliard’s—her father’s?—reach. She didn’t wish them to suffer only because they tried to protect her from the man she had blocked from her memory.

“You’re not to leave the lighthouse!” Niina hurried after Rebecca as Rebecca made her way through the kitchen.

Every muscle in her body screamed. She agonized at the thought of leaving and risking finding herself back in the clutches of men like Mercer. If he worked for her father, then her father had set few boundaries for his cronies, and Rebecca was walking right back into harm’s way.

“Wait for Abel,” Niina begged as Rebecca opened the door.

She shook her head, fighting against the tears, but more so against the fear, the hurt, and the darkness of the unknown. “I can’t stay. I can’t put you all in danger.”

“But we want to help you!” Niina’s words bounced off Rebecca’s back. She dared not look at Niina, dared not face the woman who had withheld the truth from her to keep her safe.

Rebecca understood the stark reality that being protected was not customary for her. It was a feeling, a state of being, she had long ago given up hoping for. Rebecca now knew that she had been standing alone since she was a child—except for Aaron. He had not been her protector, only she had protected him. Her younger brother who, even now, was as alone as she had been.

Faint memories were returning even in the last hour as Niina danced around Rebecca, urging her to wait for Abel, threaten ing to retrieve Edgar to have him lock Rebecca away for her own safety.

Rebecca recalled the faint image of herself as a child, a man glowering at her, the back of his hand connecting with her cheek. She couldn’t recall what she was guilty of, just that she was guilty. If this were the case, if she bore the weight of transgressions, if she carried the rancor of the man who was her own father—her own flesh and blood—then she herself brought only trial on others.

Rebecca’s feet sank into the grass. Niina had stopped following, but called to her from the lighthouse, “Rebecca, please !”

Her breath hitched as Rebecca fought back a sob. She cared enough about these three who had fed her, bathed her, shown kindness to her not to put them in further danger for her sake. She had to return—for Aaron. She could see his face more clearly now. He was fifteen, she thought. He was hardly a man and yet no longer a boy. She needed to be there for him. This was all her fault...

“Rebecca!”

This time it was a male voice, and it was sharp.

She stopped in her tracks, teetering on the edge of the embankment that led to the shoreline. Spinning, she saw Abel approaching, his long strides determined. Niina’s voice carried over the wind and the sound of the waves. “Bring her back to us, Abel!”

Even as the sun broke through the clouds and warmed Rebecca’s skin, she shivered at the determination she saw on Abel’s face as he drew nearer.

“Have you lost your senses?” Abel asked.

Rebecca bit the inside of her lip to keep it from quivering. Yes, she was certain she had lost her senses. She had lost them the moment Edgar found her at Annabel’s grave. She had further lost her way when she couldn’t recollect the past. She had lost her way when Annabel visited her, when she brushed Rebecca’s hair from her face and cooled her skin with her fingers. She had taken comfort from ghosts: Annabel, Kjersti. Worse, she had lost her way when she became controlled by men who abused her for reasons she didn’t understand. Why then would she bring anyone with her if she were so lost? To have them join her in the darkness of the world she lived in. The questions, the lack of answers, the fear, the need to flee?

Abel stepped closer to her, caution tensing his body, as if he half expected her to throw herself over the embankment. “Don’t do this. Don’t leave,” he pleaded.

“I have to,” Rebecca said with a raised voice, so he could hear her above the waves. The rolling waters that hypnotized with their glistening color and lulling pattern. They were gentle today—unlike the rising tide in Rebecca’s heart.

“You don’t.” Abel reached for her, but Rebecca moved back, maintaining some distance between them.

Abel’s bottom lip was split and puffy. Dried blood had coagulated on a cut in his cheek, and his left eye was swollen, bruised with the evidence of a battle.

“This!” Rebecca gestured to his injuries. “This is why I must go. I’m only hurting you all by staying. I’m putting you in danger, and I don’t even understand why. How can I fix what I don’t understand?”

Abel shrugged off her concern. “It is nothing. It will heal.”

“Mercer did that to you?” Rebecca demanded to know.

Abel winced, obviously not wanting to tell her the truth.

“He did,” Rebecca stated.

Abel shouted over the ruckus of the waves. “He deserved it, and he fared worse!”

“You’ll only make things worse, Abel!” Rebecca felt a pull toward him that she didn’t understand. “For me and for Aaron! For my baby!” She could drown in his eyes, as much as she almost had in the lake. Yet she knew in that drowning it would end up killing him. She just knew that the man Niina said was her father—Hilliard—would see Abel as an inconvenient obstacle, one that should be disposed of.

Abel took the final few steps toward her, grabbing hold of her shoulders with the desperation of someone who knew he was losing a battle he could not win. “Rebecca—”

She pulled away from him instantly. “I can’t stay. I know you have only tried to protect me, but I will not—”

“Don’t be foolish.” His words were insistent but not critical. They held an element of begging that made tears spring to Rebecca’s eyes. “Please, Rebecca. Let me take care of you.”

“I don’t need to be taken care of.” And she meant it, though she knew it was a ridiculous thing to say considering how she had relied on him. “Let me go. I’m not your responsibility. I-I am apparently his . My father’s.”

Abel’s face darkened. “Your father doesn’t claim you! Hilliard cares only for himself and his financial legacy.”

“But he’s my father !” Rebecca shouted back.

“You don’t understand!” Abel’s jaw was set in a stubborn line, icy fire spitting from his eyes.

Rebecca spun to leave, to flee from Abel, from the lighthouse, from the inevitable draw that would be her undoing. It was the open wound of need that made her ache to find refuge here in Annabel’s lighthouse, regardless of its ghost, of its curses. If evil could be traded for evil, Rebecca would bear the haunting of Annabel for eternity if she could only return to what moments before had felt like a prison.

No.

No!

She was in prison even here, standing on the shore of Lake Superior, her hair whipping wildly about her. She was caged by the knowledge of a man whose will superseded her well-being. She was never to be free. Never to be her own person. Even her mind had locked her away behind bars made of foggy, dark memories.

Abel’s hands once again grasped her shoulders, turning her gently yet firmly to meet his frigid yet somehow warm and inviting gaze. “What about your babe?” he asked. “Think of the child. You must protect it from those who seek to harm you!”

“What about my brother?” she snapped. “There’s no one to protect him from my father.” Rebecca’s eyes burned, and she did little to hold back the tears that rolled down her cheeks. “I don’t know this child or its father, but I know my brother. I can feel him. And I will not desert him.” She spat the words, which were like a confession being dragged from her unwillingly.

“Rebecca, you—”

“Stop!” She slammed her palms into Abel’s chest, shoving him away from her. “Leave me.” The agony of her blocked memories, the trauma of her latest assault, and the dread of what she was yet to face all overwhelmed her. It hindered any ability to conceptualize her next steps. And the baby’s presence inside of her had stolen the last fragments of a life that had once been pure and hopeful.

Abel stiffened, his chest heaving. “I won’t let you go.”

“You must !” Rebecca yelled. The waves had grown fiercer, crashing now onto the rocks below, spray shooting upward.

“No!” Abel set his mouth in a grim line. “You will not return to your father!”

“I will!” She took another step backward.

“Please, Rebecca, don’t do this.”

“Let me go, Abel.”

“I can’t!” he insisted.

“Why not?” she screamed.

“Because your baby is mine !” Abel’s declaration rose louder than the waves, louder than the wind, and louder than the pounding of her own heart.

Air escaped her as though she’d been gutted. She stared at Abel with her mouth agape, his bold claim having ripped the words from her throat.

Abel’s eyes were pleading. He didn’t touch her, but he might as well have. He might as well have bound her to him in that moment and in a way she could not make sense of. “Your baby is mine, Rebecca. I’m the father.”

She closed and then opened her mouth again to ask questions, to try to comprehend the meaning of what she’d just heard.

Abel’s voice dropped in volume as he bent close so that she could hear him above the lake’s insistent roar. Rebecca felt his breath on her face. She could imagine she felt the pounding of his heart resonating so loudly between them that the vibrations collided with her own.

“I belong to you, Rebecca. You are my wife .”