Page 9 of Tempest at Annabel's Lighthouse
ANNABEL’S LIGHTHOUSE
PRESENT DAY
“DON’T GET TOO CLOSE.It may bite you.”
Shea mouthed the lightkeeper’s words to herself as she explored the place that would be her home for the next month. Annabel’s Lighthouse. A two-story building with cramped rooms, a metal spiral staircase that led from the keeper’s bedroom up to the little attic bedrooms and then on to the lighthouse itself.
Curiosity demanded that she ignore the inner rooms and head to the beacon or lamp room. The square iron gallery accommodated a platform and rail, while the decagonal beaconroom held an old Fresnel lens and light. Though it was no longer working, no longer warning ships of the rocky shoreline, the light remained intact, like a time capsule that held memories only it could recall. She eyed heavy curtains hanging over several of the panes of glass, wondering at their existence when the purpose of the lighthouse was to shine the light outward, not hold it inside.
Pulling her phone from her pocket, she typed a note into an app to remind herself to research the curious curtains. The room was a tad chilly, the wind clanging against its metal framework.
Annabel’s Lighthouse.
Shea was here for Annabel as much as she was for the inner workings of a lighthouse built in the 1860s. She scanned the horizon. It was said a person could see twelve miles out on a clear day. Twelve miles of blue-green waters, icy cold even on a hot July day. Waters that never gave up their dead but preserved them for years because of the freezing temperatures. Corpses didn’t have the normal “bloat and float,” as Shea liked to call it. They sank along with their ships, which became permanent caskets in a watery grave.
But then there was Annabel.
Not much was known of the woman who had taken over the name of Silvertown Lighthouse and claimed the place as her own. It was said that some nights she could be seen walking the shoreline, barefoot and wearing a white gown. Annabel’s story comprised a marriage and an outside lover, thwarted love, a raging tempest, and a man who had never given up hope of finding her—the young woman lost to the lake’s frigid depths.
The lighthouse had been kept for years, the beacon said to have searched for the lost woman even on calm nights. Its light shone over the waters, a silent cry for Annabel to come home, to rise from the lake and take her place beside the man who’d loved her for decades until his death.
Today, Annabel was a mere ghost story. Her spirit was said tohaunt the lighthouse. She was a restless spirit, visiting people when least expected, acting as though she pled for rescue, sometimes heralded as a nurturing specter, other times so haunting she was almost like a siren one wished to follow. Some said her husband killed her. Most believed the man who’d truly loved her—her lover—joined Annabel after he died. An old man curled on his cot in the lightkeeper’s room, alone and decrepit.
Shea didn’t believe in ghosts, but she did believe in lore and in telling the stories of the ones whose lives had been captured in ways that made them ghostly.
Annabel had a story.
Shea planned to unravel it, and then she would write it. And when Shea was done, Annabel would no longer be a ghost, but a human who had lived and died, plagued by the same tempestuous waters of love that Shea herself was attempting to navigate.
As she did on any research trip, Shea took the first day to explore the area and gather information. Following a fifteen-minute drive from the lighthouse, she entered the Porcupine Mountains State Park and its miles of wilderness. Once she’d found a place to park, she set off, hiking along the Escarpment Trail that led to a scenic overlook, where she could look down at the vastness of the region and the famed Lake of the Clouds, which sparkled at the foot of the dramatic cliffs. The old-growth forest below burst into full spring foliage, a deep emerald green and invitingly lush.
While she’d been enticed to hike the trail, she wasn’t prepared for a several-mile-long walk, nor was it the purpose of her day. Turning away from the Lake of the Clouds, she traveled back toward the lighthouse and then beyond it toward Ontonagon. Lunch in a small diner brought her face-to-face with locals, and she spent some time exploring the town, poking her head into a small museum, and afterward walking the pier. She’d gathered afew names of people to reach out to for more information about lore, history, and the like.
The name Edna Carraway had come up a few times, just as Holt had mentioned earlier that morning, and so had the names August Fronell and Captain Gene. Apparently all three were locals, born and raised, with Captain Gene being the one who interested her the most. Maybe it was theCaptainahead of his name, or maybe it was merely because he’d been described as “cranky and crotchety.” And while she might get the most stories out of him concerning Annabel and the lighthouse, she’d be lucky to find the man.
It seemed the captain was as elusive as “Pressie,” the lake’s mysterious serpent that was not unlike the Loch Ness Monster. In fact, they said it was Captain Gene who had been the last known person to spot Pressie in the lake, although that had been back in the 1970s. Regardless, Captain Gene was someone Shea wanted to interview.
With leads noted in her phone app, Shea made her way back to the lighthouse, stopping briefly at the diner once again where the Wi-Fi was reliable. She scanned her inbox, wrote and sent an email to her editor, and thumbed through text messages.
Pete had texted her once:Make it there?
She eyed it for a long moment, debating whether she felt like giving Pete the satisfaction of knowing she’d arrived safely. He could have at least taken the time to call her. Finally, she ignored the sting of her stagnant marriage and sent him a quick response:Yep.
There. If Pete could write in short sentences, so could she.
Back at the lighthouse, Shea heated soup in the kitchen, enjoying the cast-iron pot and the old-fashioned stove that still worked. She’d followed the instructions Holt had left on a laminated card—wood in the firebox to get it started and to keep itwarm. Back in the day, they would have followed up the wood with coal for longer and more consistent burning. But tonight, she just needed enough to heat the iron range, which took far longer than Shea anticipated.
That was the allure of Annabel’s Lighthouse, and she knew when she’d reserved the place that she’d be stepping back in time. A microwave oven was available as another option for heating up the soup, but the call of the prior century had wrapped itself around Shea as darkness set in. She could hear the ebb and flow of the waves on the shoreline. The strength in the waves filled the lighthouse with a consistent, rhythmic song.
The lights in the kitchen were kept purposefully dim. Shea could see why Holt had attempted to recreate an early twentieth century appeal. The simplicity of life was emphasized by the solitude of the lighthouse, a cozy environment that belied the dangers of the lake and wilderness just outside the door.
With a bowl of hot soup in hand, Shea moved to the sitting room, settling on a green couch long out of style. It sagged in the middle but was remarkably comfortable when Shea sank onto it. She propped her feet on a faded blue-velvet ottoman and, with a sigh of relief for the familiar, retrieved the remote control for the small TV mounted on the wall above a table that held coasters, a few locally written books on the area, and a guest book for visitors to sign.
She wasn’t sure what she’d find for channels, and it was obvious to her the moment she turned on the TV that her choices were limited. But there was a true-crime documentary on, and now that it was dark outside and the 60-watt lightbulb in the lone lamp created shadows around the room, it only seemed appropriate to watch something creepy.
Maybe Annabel would pay a visit too...
Shea smiled to herself, pleased with the solitude, the silence, and the overwhelming feeling that she was alone. Truly alone. A wild country, a temperamental lake, a legendary ghost, andjust herself. It was almost delightful, if she could set aside the realities of life.
