Page 32 of Tempest at Annabel's Lighthouse
Penny glanced at him, her eyes wide. “Oh yeah. Jonathan used to come in here and tell me all the things he was trying to figure out. Then it went from research to an obsession. It was really strange. He came into the bar one night just before closing, around one in the morning. He was a mess, an absolute mess. He said he’d had a sense he was being watched as he tried to sleep. Someone hiding in his closet. He investigated further and said there was the shadow of a woman staring out at him as he lay on the lightkeeper’s bed, and when Jonathan sat up, the vision dissipated.”
“Every closet is haunted. We learn that when we’re kids.” Holt jabbed a hole into Penny’s story.
She jabbed the air back at him with her finger. “You may not believe, but I do. I saw Jonathan that night, and let me tell you, that man was all scientific and statistics before he moved into the lighthouse. Then to go and kill himself? I don’t believe it.”
“Did Jonathan have issues with Annabel too? I don’t mean haunting him; I mean like my windshield getting shattered?” Shea had to ask even though the stories were sounding more ludicrous by the minute.
“Mm-hmm.” Penny gave a curt nod. “Little things mostly. There was the time he was picking up his laundry from the laundromat in Ontonagon. Yeah, and there was black soot all through his clean clothes.”
“Soot?” Holt questioned.
“Yes. Like old coal soot from the stove back in the lighthouse. Only the clothes had been washed.” Penny held her palms up toward the ceiling. “Figure that one out. Someone sabotaged his laundry.”
“Doesn’t sound tooghostlyto me.” Holt twisted his bottle on the bar. “Sounds like a kid’s prank.”
“So, essentially, the argument goes that Annabel’s spirit can’t rest in peace because people keep trying to find out what happened to her?” Shea summarized.
Penny’s red lips drew into a thin line, emphasizing the fine wrinkles around her mouth. “Partly. I think the lighthouse has secrets, more than we realize.That’swhat makes it—and Annabel—an enigma. But she needs to be left alone.”
Penny cleared her throat as she took a step back from the bar to retrieve the cheeseburger and pastie for Holt and Shea. She hesitated, then spun and leveled a look on Shea.
“I will say this, though. Things got really weird with Jonathan when he uncovered the story about the girl who showed up at the lighthouse about twenty years after Annabel died. Rebecca,they called her. Jonathan found some mention of the girl in the copies of the lighthouse log. There wasn’t a lot of detail. A few pieces of historical documents said she was Annabel reincarnated, but the really strange thing? Silvertown went a little crazy about that time. It was right when the silver mining dream was ready to burst wide open, and the town was in the process of becoming a port. People started seeing Annabel more often. A miner even reported that Annabel’s ghost sabotaged the stamp mill to halt the miners from harvesting the silver ore. Jonathan was dead two days after he told me that little tale. He thought there was some connection there—between the lost girl and the dead Annabel.”
“What doyouthink?” Holt’s tone was serious, and Shea felt her breath catch in her throat.
Penny turned away to refill Shea’s soda. “Doesn’t matter what I think. I just know that one day Jonathan Marks wore a business suit and championed climate-change awareness and gun control. The next day he looked like Shaggy from Scooby-Doo, drinking every night and telling others the lighthouse needed to be destroyed so that Annabel’s spirit would move on. And then he took a bullet to the head. Whether by his own hand or Annabel’s or someone else’s, who knows?” Penny’s eyes locked on Shea’s. “Fact is, he was the last person I know to try to understand Annabel and the lighthouse and, well, the cursed story killed him.”
14
REBECCA
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling my beautiful Annabel Lee...
Annabel Lee
ANNABEL’S LIGHTHOUSE
SPRING, 1874
ABEL SLAMMED THE DOOR.Rebecca startled from where she sliced the last of Niina’s bread as she attempted to help make lunch for the two lightkeepers.
His eyes were wide, and urgency in them she’d not witnessed since her arrival. He motioned toward the inner sanctum of the house. “Go, Rebecca! Now. Go to the oil room.”
“What?” Dazed by his sudden appearance as it cut through the otherwise quiet day, Rebecca stared at him in confusion.
“Go!” His eyes widened even further, and he leaped forward,grabbing her arm. The knife slipped from her grasp and clattered onto the cutting board.
She shrank away from him, and Abel dropped his grip as if touching her had burned him. Apology spread across his face, but he didn’t voice it. Instead, he shot a harried look over his shoulder toward the door, then back to Rebecca.
“Please, Rebecca. Trust me. There are men coming. You need to take refuge in the oil room, and don’t come out until they are gone.”
“Are they—?” She bit her tongue. How would Abel know if they were the men who had assaulted her? But his imperative pushing her into hiding made sense now. She nodded and hurried from the kitchen just as someone banged on the door. Scurrying around the corner, she ducked into the oil room, careful to avoid the window. She pulled the door shut, leaving it open only a crack so she could hear.
“—saw her last night.” The man’s voice was gruff and unfamiliar.
“Saw who?” Abel’s attempt to sound nonchalant didn’t fool Rebecca at all. She heard the brief quiver in his voice, and he must have noticed it also, for he coughed as if clearing his throat to cover it.
“Annabel’s ghost.” The man spat the words as though it were an accusation.
