Chapter 27
I woke in the middle of the night to find myself inside the cabin. Not the ruined pile of splintered beams that had been scattered like broken bones after being torn down earlier that day. It was the way it had once stood, in the quiet weight of its history.
I leaned against one of the walls, my bare feet cold against the plank floor. Looking down, I was still dressed in a long, vintage black satin nightgown that skimmed the top of my feet.
As I took in where I was and why I was there, I heard something.
Not footsteps.
Not voices.
A slow, steady hum.
I turned to see a girl in the center of the room, brushing a broom across the floor with slow, deliberate strokes.
She looked no older than seventeen, and her dark hair fell to her shoulders, straight and without style.
Her simple, dated dress was stylish but faded at the hem.
And when she moved, the light slid through her, as though she were there and not there at the same time.
“Hello,” I said.
She gave me no acknowledgment.
I pushed away from the wall and took a step closer, the floor creaking beneath my feet.
Still, she didn’t seem to notice me.
“Can you hear me?” I asked.
Nothing.
As she continued to hum, the tune became clearer and more defined, and I recognized the song. It was one my mother often played when I was a child. The girl stopped sweeping and lifted her head. Her eyes met mine, dark and knowing, as if she’d expected me and wasn’t surprised.
“I’m Anne … and you are?”
“Dreaming,” I said.
“Sometimes dreams weave into reality. Did you know that?”
What I knew was that she wouldn’t be around long.
In dreams like this one, they never were.
“I’ve been searching for you,” I said.
“I know. You’ve been to the cabin twice this week.”
“Why are you here?” I asked. “Or maybe I should say, why are you still here?”
She glanced around the cabin, her gaze lingering on the beam where her initials were carved. “We’re here together.”
“Who’s here together? You and me?”
She moved a hand to her hip, nodding. “Who else would I be talking about?”
“Did you ever come to the cabin with anyone, someone you thought you could trust?”
She didn’t answer. Instead, she stepped closer, the broom fading from her hands as she moved. The air grew colder with each step she took closer to me, as if the warmth of the room recoiled from her.
“Trust means different things to different people,” she said.
“Were you murdered?”
“You’re the private investigator. What do you think?”
“I think you were.”
“Maybe you should trust your instincts, then. What else do they tell you?”
“The person who killed you also killed Audrey.”
“Audrey was smarter than she realized, but she was also na?ve.”
“Did he or she, the one who murdered you, know Audrey found your locket?”
“He. She. Does it matter? I’m dead. If you don’t want the same fate, maybe it shouldn’t matter to you so much.”
“Don’t you want to be found, for your case to be solved?”
“I don’t see why it matters anymore. Although …”
The words trailed off, and she stood there, silent.
“What were you about to say?” I asked.
“It would be nice to leave this place.”
“Did you ever consider you might be stuck here because your murder hasn’t been solved?”
She shrugged. “Answers end things. Questions keep them alive.”
“Is that your fear? You think if you’re found, you won’t be remembered anymore? Or that no one cared enough to keep looking until they found out what happened to you?”
“A bit of both, I suppose.”
“I’ll remember you, and I care.”
“Yeah, you care about Audrey.”
“And you.”
She looked at me as if to say, “Prove it.”
“I was placed where the land stayed still, where no one thought to look twice. I wasn’t missing,” she said. “I was hidden, until the truth refused to stay silent. What am I?”
“Bones. Your bones. I thought they would be here, but they are not.”
She turned, pointing toward the doorway, then past it, into the darkness beyond. “They’re not here. Not anymore.”
“If not here, then where?”
“Follow the water, not the path, to the place where two are one.”
“Water,” I said. “What water?”
“It’s time for you to go now.”
“No, wait. I have more questions.”
She went quiet, stepping backward, fading a little and then a little more until she was gone, and I was the only one left in the room. I squeezed my eyes shut, and when they opened, I woke with the echo of Anne’s words still clinging to me:
Follow the water.
Not the path.
To the place where two are one.