The Lighthouse Summer (It Was Always You #3)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

There was a war going on.

It was between Ruby’s head and her heart.

Her head, which was cool and collected all things considered, was arguing that she hadn’t just seen the ghost of her great-grandmother running around in the middle of the night.

Her heart, on the other hand, was arguing the opposite.

It was arguing in the form of hard, fast pounding against her rib cage, drowning out any logical thoughts her mind might’ve otherwise been able to put forth.

She was sitting on the porch, not quite sure when she’d gotten down there, but it made sense that she’d collapsed, given how much her legs felt like jello at the moment.

She had also dropped the flashlight at some point, so that it was now on the ground at the bottom of the porch steps, the beam illuminating roughly the same spot where she’d just seen the pale figure in the blue dress. Currently, nobody was there.

Maybe there had never been anyone there.

Ruby forced herself to take a few deep breaths, but even as her lungs expanded and her brain was given the oxygen it so desperately needed, she didn’t feel any less panicked. She closed her eyes and let her head fall into her hands for a moment.

“Okay. Okay. You’re fine,” she whispered to herself.

“It’s going to be alright.” She rubbed her face roughly a couple of times, wondering if maybe she was dreaming and just needed to snap herself awake.

No dice. When she took her hands away from her face, she found that she was still on the porch. It wasn’t a dream.

But that didn’t mean it was real.

Laughing, Ruby got to her feet and picked up the flashlight.

“You’re the one who doesn’t believe in ghosts, remember?” she told herself. “You’re the one who always figured out how the people on those shows were making it look like a building was haunted when it really wasn’t. So just think. There’s a logical explanation for this.”

She brought the beam across the trees, looking for any more sign of a trespasser—ghostly or otherwise.

There was nothing, and all was quiet. She shook her head, chalking the whole situation up to the fact that she was exhausted and had been reading some of Edith’s old diaries right before she got spooked.

Her eyes were clearly just playing tricks on her.

And my ears.

She recalled the fact that this had all started after she heard a crashing sound coming from the other side of the house.

If Milo hadn’t opted to spend the night inside the house, not in his hammock, she might’ve considered going to look for the source of the sound.

Since she knew her son was sleeping safely in the other bedroom, she didn’t.

A part of her was also a little scared to go see what was around the corner.

She was alone, it was dark, and she still hadn’t managed to fully catch her breath.

She went back inside, leaving the rest of her investigation until the light of day, at which point she hoped she would be able to stay calm enough to figure out what really happened without her imagination running wild.

She took the flashlight with her and tiptoed down the hall back to the master bedroom. Her fingers were curling around the door handle when another sound cut through the eerie silence and sent a chill down Ruby’s spine.

Laughter.

A woman’s laughter, that Ruby was almost sure of.

The sound was so loud, Ruby knew it had come from inside the house.

The basement, to be exact. She clicked the flashlight back on, her hands shaking.

She listened for any sign that Milo had been woken up by this noise, but he still seemed to be fast asleep.

There was no noise coming from the other side of his door.

Ruby thought about waking him up so that she wouldn’t have to go into the basement by herself, but what would she tell him if she did?

Milo was already prone to believing in ghosts and the supernatural.

If she told him the story of seeing a woman running around the property and hearing bouts of laughter, he would go even further down the haunted house rabbit hole.

Then she might never get him to see reason.

She could just imagine the excitement on his face.

“I knew it!” he would say. “I told you.”

She couldn’t let him think that. Not out of some stubborn need to be right, but because the whole thing just opened up too many questions.

There was a chance she had imagined all of this stuff, which was also a reality she wasn’t ready to deal with.

She wanted to see for herself first and go from there.

Even if it terrified her to do so.

She put one foot in front of the other, forcing herself to move closer and closer to the basement door even as her fear was growing, soon to boil over.

At the door, she took a deep breath and turned the handle as slowly and quietly as she could.

For some reason, she felt the worst thing she could do at that moment was to let anyone know she was coming down into the basement.

The flashlight, however, was probably a dead giveaway with its powerful and harsh beacon.

She didn’t dare turn it off, though. She wanted to keep the staircase very well lit, and when she tried to flip the light switch by the door, the bulb flickered a few times before going out entirely.

If her flashlight for some reason failed her too, she would be plunged into darkness.

Ruby gulped.

Despite her insistence that ghosts weren’t real, she wasn’t sure she’d ever been this scared in her life.

She headed down the stairs, taking them one at a time to minimize the creaking sounds they made under her weight. When her bare feet touched the cool, cement floor at the bottom, she sighed with relief. She’d made it down safely, and everything seemed to be in order. She smiled.

If there’s anything to fear down here, it’s just the spiders.

But just to be sure, Ruby mustered up all the courage she had left and took a better look around, letting the flashlight illuminate every part of the massive downstairs room—including the dark corners where she knew spiders were likely tucked away.

She didn’t see anything, not even a big spider, and was content to go back to bed when another peal of laughter came from behind the door at the other side of the room.

The raccoon room, or at least that was how Ruby had been referring to the mysterious basement room ever since Milo told her he thought that’s where the critters had made their nest. She hadn’t gone in there, wanting to wait until there was someone on the scene who could help remove the raccoons and put them in a safe place elsewhere.

Now, if she wanted to find out what was going on, she would have to get over her fear.

Ruby pushed her shoulders back. She thought about the thing she was most afraid of finding behind the door.

It wasn’t a family of raccoons, although that wasn’t exactly a comforting thought.

It was Edith. Then again, if the ghost of her great-grandmother was haunting this house, Ruby would like to find out sooner rather than later.

Edith wouldn’t do anything to hurt me anyway…

Ruby obviously couldn’t be sure of this, since she didn’t have any grasp on how a ghost might behave, but she tried to believe her own words as she crossed the room. Edith was a loved one. She wouldn’t be a mean ghost; she would be a nice ghost. Like Casper.

“Yeah,” she whispered to herself. “Edith would be like Casper. Casper isn’t scary.”

This time, she didn’t want to hesitate, knowing that if she took too long, she would talk herself out of it. Once she was at the door, she turned the handle and ripped it open.

Her eyes were accosted by the brightness of another bulb light, and she yelped in surprise, throwing her hands up to cover her face from the sudden and overwhelming illumination. “Ah!”

“Mom!” Milo’s voice echoed in Ruby’s ears as she blinked away the pain.

“Milo? What—” Her eyes finally adjusted, and she was able to take a real look at the small room.

It was a lot cleaner than the rest of the basement, and there was a small day bed with what appeared to be a new mattress on it.

There was also a fuzzy pink blanket, a fuzzy pink pillow, and a young woman wearing a blue dress sitting on the bed.

Ruby stared at her, head cocked to the side in confusion.

“Uh…” That was all Ruby could think to say.

The young woman smiled meekly and waved. She was definitely the person Ruby had seen running across the yard, but she looked a lot less pale and a lot more alive, now that Ruby was seeing her in better lighting. She was young, pretty, and had grass stains on her shins. Her hair was a total mess.

“Mom.” Milo had been sitting on the bed with the girl. There was a deck of cards between them. He got up now and walked over to Ruby. “I can explain.”

Ruby laughed. “Gosh, I hope so.” She brought a hand to her head. “And please start by telling me that this isn’t the ghost of your great, great-grandmother.”