Page 35 of Tempest at Annabel's Lighthouse
All privacy gone, Rebecca held the tea towel to her chest as if it were a shield. “Hello?” Her whisper was shaky.
There was no response.
“H-hello?” She tried increasing her volume, hoping Abel would speak from the hallway. Hoping he had merely gone to check the lantern on Edgar’s behalf and was returning to his room, that the weight of his footsteps had somehow instigated the swing of the door and—
The floor creaked again.
Rebecca stilled.
She couldn’t tear her gaze from the open doorway, the wall beyond it, and the darkness that enveloped the hall. Only a crack of light from beneath the door to the spiral staircase of the lighthouse provided any illumination, and it revealed nothing that might explain the noise.
Rebecca had just taken a few more tentative steps to the doorway when a rush of cold air swiped through her. Bumps rose on her flesh. Her hip bumped the edge of the small table by the bed that held the pitcher and basin, and the pitcher tipped, crashing onto the floor. Shattering, water splashed on Rebecca’s legs, the porcelain exploding into shards.
The cold air dissipated, but as it did, it stole her breath. A phantom, reaching inside of her and wrapping vengeful fingers around her lungs and squeezing. Black shields closed over her eyes. Rebecca screamed, grabbing for the bed even as her foot came down on a sharp piece of the broken pitcher, the stabbing pain of it only adding to the intense disorientation of the moment. She wrestled to stay conscious, to stay alert, and she cursed the weakness that enfolded her. Fumbling to find the bed, Rebecca blinked against the darkness rising before her vision. In that brief second, a ghoulish face of a woman pressed in close to hers, blackness for eye sockets, her mouth gaping, and her breath frigid but ripe with the stench of smoke. Like a fire made of ice.
“Go away, Annabel!” Rebecca moaned as she fell into the oblivion that sought to claim her, missing the bed and collapsing onto the porcelain that littered the floor.
15
“IT’S NOT GOOD, ABEL.
Rebecca heard Niina’s voice before she opened her eyes. Her body hurt, her head hurt, and worst of all, the awful image from the previous night remained trapped behind her eyelids. That woman. It couldn’t have been Annabel. The Annabel that had visited before, had wandered the shore, even the Annabel that had disappeared beneath the waves—she had been ethereal. Distant. A gentle but unsettling spirit. The one from last night had been sheer terror.
Niina continued to whisper, and Rebecca strained to hear.
“Is it the baby?” Worry tainted Abel’s voice.
“No, no. Not that.”
The brush of material and a whiff of musty air pushed through Rebecca’s haze. Was Niina rifling through Kjiersti’s trunk, releasing mildew and memories, or did Annabel’s ghostly visit still haunt her senses?
“The men I met on the way here. They’re looking for her.”
“For Annabel?”
“Annabel?” The mockery in Niina’s tone directed at the miners was easy to decipher. “No. Forher.”
“Rebecca?”
“Joo.”
“I’d hoped they thought she was dead.” Abel’s words sliced through Rebecca as full consciousness returned. She remained still, unwilling to open her eyes and cut their conversation short. She knew the moment they knew she was aware, they would bite their tongues, give her those awful pitying looks, and pretend they knew less than they did.
“I had hoped so as well. But these men werehismen. Not the superstitious ones from town who think Annabel holds some sort of power.”
“This isn’t good.” Abel echoed his mother’s words.
“And what happened here?” Niina must have toed a bucket filled with the remnants of the pitcher because glass clanked against tin.
“I don’t know,” Abel breath released in a heavy sigh that Rebecca felt reverberate through her body as though somehow he felt her pain, had inherited her fear, and was at an equal loss as to what to do next.
She stirred then, mostly because she felt she would be discovered eavesdropping and secondly because her body ached from holding still.
“There now.” Niina’s hand brushed Rebecca’s hair back from her forehead.
Finally, Rebecca opened her eyes and met the concerned, motherly face of Niina. Behind her towered Abel, and hovering in the doorway behind Abel was the stoop-shouldered and very silent Edgar.
“She’s good then?” Edgar’s relief was evident by the tone of his voice.
