Page 26 of Tempest at Annabel's Lighthouse
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.
12
SHEA
And this was the reason that, long ago, in this kingdom by the sea...
Annabel Lee
ANNABEL’S LIGHTHOUSE
PRESENT DAY
SHE HAD A SPLITTING HEADACHE.The kind that made a woman want to shower, bathe, curl up in bed, drink wine, and engage in a thousand other self-care attempts to make oneself feel better. Instead, Shea waved to Marnie, Edna’s daughter, who had given her a ride back to the lighthouse after having her car towed to a nearby repair shop.
Entering the lighthouse, Shea dropped her bag onto the table so she could dig through it to find aspirin. Popping two, she opted to avoid the wine since that wouldn’t be much help in collecting her thoughts.
Who in their right mind would throw a brick through someone’s windshield? And as much as she liked Edna Carraway, the elderly woman believed that a spirit could break a windshield, that Annabel had somehow risen from the dead and vandalized Shea’s car. Shea snorted, feeling a tad guilty as she did so.
The logic simply wasn’t there. Poor Edna. The elderly woman was so shaken by the incident that the police had called Marnie at the diner and asked her to come home. After finally getting Edna settled with a cup of tea and an old black-and-white western, Marnie had joined Shea back outside as Shea filed her report with the cops and helped her arrange to have the windshield repaired.
She had little to no hope the culprit would be found. Streets in Ontonagon weren’t lined with cameras.
“Am I in personal danger?” she had inquired of the police, who shrugged and explained that without a clear motive, it was hard to know what, if anything, was meant by the act of vandalism. It could be just bored kids with nothing to do. Or kids who didn’t like having tourists in town.
“It’s not the first time it’s happened here,” Marnie had chimed in, seconding the officer’s conclusion.
They’d do their best to figure it, but Shea could tell they had already dismissed it as unsolvable. That was the police response, and Shea really couldn’t fault them. It wasn’t as if they had a lot to go on, and motive was sketchy at best.
In the end, finding Edna relaxed and content with John Wayne, Marnie had offered to bring Shea to the lighthouse, and Shea had accepted.
Now she traipsed through the century-old house to the lightkeeper’s room. She slipped into a pair of joggers and a hoodie sweatshirt, hoping Holt didn’t decide to drop by tonight and see her in her slothful clothes that did nothing to aid her already curvy figure.
