The Ghost of You Lingers

Chapter 1

I grabbed my battered suitcase from the stack of luggage that came off the ferry. It was covered in duct tape and, like me, had seen better days. As I extended the handle and walked toward the interior of the island to find my new cottage, a man took it from my hands.

“What the—”

“This you?” He held up a placard with the name “Veronica Cartwright” on it, then pointed at my bag.

When I bought it from a thrift shop, I’d put stickers in the shape of letters in different fonts on the front.

It made my name look like a ransom note.

No one alive would’ve paid a ransom for me, so it seemed funny at the time.

Alone on an island nine hundred miles from home, it was less funny now.

The letters spelled my chosen name, Gibson Cartwright.

“Close enough.” I hadn’t answered to Veronica for almost twenty years, but it was technically still my legal name. Whatever.

“This way.” He walked into the crowd of tourists, dragging my bag behind him, wheels scraping against uneven concrete.

The porter must have been at least seventy-five, with a stoop and neat white hair.

If he had been a young dude, I would have ripped my bag out of his hands and told him to fuck off.

Instead, I followed him through the plaza.

I could be an asshole but I wasn’t about to scream at a senior citizen.

Kids I recognized from the ferry ride to the island ran with reckless abandon toward an ice cream stand.

A group of women I’d overheard gossiping about their plans to celebrate being divorced power-walked with equal glee to the first bar in sight.

Some of them were cute, but without leather or tattoos, they weren’t exactly my type.

I pushed a strand of wet-noodle hair out of my eyes and silently cursed humidity in general. Then Michigan humidity in particular.

Downtown Mackinac Island was full of fudge shops, novelty gift stores, and more fudge shops.

Flower boxes and bicycle racks lined the streets.

Because cars weren’t allowed, people strolled down the middle of the street holding hands.

A quaint little town you couldn’t easily leave—it gave me the creeps.

The porter turned onto a small road leading into the residential part of the island.

I almost stepped in several piles of manure casually dropped by the gigantic horses that clop-clopped around the car-free island.

Some were attached to carriages holding swooning couples, others ridden by giddy tourists.

My black shirt was already soaked through with sweat.

I followed the older man down an even smaller road lined with densely crowded cedar trees and tall lilac bushes.

The trees on my block back home in New York were friendly, but these loomed like nosy giants.

The sound of happy vacationers faded, replaced by birdsong and the whispering wind.

I shivered at the change, and a chill came over me despite the damp summer heat.

We turned down a private lane marked with a small wooden sign that said Abaddon Cottage.

It cut through a dark mass of trees that opened to reveal my newly deceased great-aunt’s house.

We’d never met, so I didn’t understand why her dying wish was to give me her house.

I didn’t want the house. Cash would’ve been great, but just like everyone else in my family, she didn’t give a shit about what I wanted.

But Mackinac was full of rich fucks with rich-fuck real estate, so I was ready to cash in on the unexpected inheritance.

“Here, miss,” the porter said. “Good luck.”

“Uh, thanks.”

“Give ya two days,” the man muttered as he turned toward the road.

“What?”

The porter turned back around. He raised bushy white eyebrows and nodded at the house. “Couldn’t pay me to live in there. Good luck, girl.”

***

Abaddon Cottage was enormous. I thought a “cottage” was supposed to be small and charming. Cute, even. This was large. Formidable, even.

The front yard was a tangled mess of vines that choked out any charm the grounds may have had.

I unclipped the key ring from the carabiner on my belt loop and approached the house.

It was a dilapidated, three-story wood-and-brick-faced miniature mansion with a wraparound porch.

On it sat a pair of Adirondack chairs that badly needed a coat of paint.

The entire place needed a coat of paint. Or a time machine.

For half a second, I thought I saw someone with long hair standing in the third-floor bedroom. But when I blinked and looked again, it was just the outline of an old lamp.

“Okay, Aunt Agatha,” I said, unlocking the door. She had been my mother’s aunt, not mine. A simple blood relationship that was anything but simple, seeing as both were dead and neither had wanted anything to do with me while they were alive. “Let’s get this over with.”

My boss Babs didn’t give a shit if I worked from the office or Timbuktu as long as I turned in assignments on time.

But the longer I remained, the more likely it was that another shitstain guitar player would steal my spot in the band whose career I’d helped launch.

They thought of me as nothing but a sideman.

But with their regular guitarist in jail, the lead singer had promised me the gig, full time.

And she was hot, but all we’d ever done was fool around, so I wanted a shot at making her my full-time gig, too.

Pushing away thoughts of Brooke, I entered the house. I tried the boot scraper mounted next to the door, then pulled off my manure-encrusted shoes.

The tile entryway led to a giant curved staircase.

Off to one side was a grandfather clock, its pendulum swinging lethargically.

A huge chandelier hung in front of the staircase.

Beyond the entryway, cream-colored wallpaper with a swirly texture covered the walls, accompanied by a warm wooden trim.

Dust bunnies gathered in the crevices. Agatha’s furnishings had been left as part of the estate transfer, and the caretaker had covered them in white sheets, leaving the impression of a ghostly gathering.

I pulled off one of the sheets, then regretted it when I uncovered a hideous pink couch.

I left my bag next to the staircase and ran a finger over the baluster. My fingertip came away dark with grime, so I wiped it on my pants. I whistled, then shivered at how the house swallowed the sound.

On the other side of the staircase was an alcove with a floor-to-ceiling bookcase. It even had one of those rolling ladders. I ran my hands over the spines, expecting dust, but my hand came away clean.

The kitchen and bathroom made up the rest of the first floor.

A basic wooden kitchen table was nestled against the wall next to the door leading to the backyard.

The table was clean and empty. In the bathroom, I flipped the light switch, but nothing happened.

The shower was basic, tiled in grimy white squares.

I tried not to think of the stabbing scene from Psycho , but it appeared in my head anyway.

Before heading upstairs, I flipped a switch labeled “chand.” The lights in the chandelier came to life, twinkling and sending warm shards of light around the hallway. Except one bulb on the bottom, which stubbornly remained dark like a tooth punched out of a smiling face.

Upstairs were two bedrooms, one with mint-green wallpaper and one with a more tasteful rose pattern.

Both were old-fashioned, but in a cozy way.

I didn’t hate it nearly as much as I should.

In spite of myself, I saw potential. Someone could stay here.

Someone who wanted to escape the real world.

Someone who wanted to live in a creaky Victorian-era house on an island they couldn’t easily leave. Someone who wasn’t me.

The third floor consisted entirely of the master suite. It had a detached wardrobe and a bathroom with an old claw-foot tub and decently clean tile. None of it was my style, but I could live with it until I found a buyer.

A chime from the downstairs grandfather clock jump-started my heart. I told it to calm the fuck down.

Looking back at the empty room, this time I saw sadness.

The four-poster bed stood stalwart against the march of time, covered by a quilt made by hand long ago.

I purposely distanced myself from my family, including whoever made that quilt.

Although on purpose, my disconnection from them now made me feel isolated and small.

A loud scream ripped through the silence of the room.

It was high-pitched, almost a whistle. My shoulders rose, and my entire body tensed with fear.

“What the—”

After a moment of frozen indecision, I skipped down the stairs two at a time. Halfway to the landing, I stopped, realizing what the sound was.

A tea kettle?

I mentally replayed my walkthrough of the kitchen, trying to remember a tea kettle. I couldn’t remember seeing one, but it didn’t matter, because there was no one else in the house. I unlocked the door. I was the only person with keys.

The sound abated. I strained my ears and, sure enough, heard the sound of water being poured into a mug. Someone else was in the house.

I counted to ten, breathing deeply, then shouted, “Whoever you are, you’re trespassing on private property!”

Racing down the stairs, I skidded around the base of the staircase and thundered into the kitchen like a bat headed into hell. I stopped at the entrance with a hand against the old refrigerator, breathing heavily.

The kitchen was empty.

But something caught my eye and held it, anchoring me in place.

The empty table wasn’t empty anymore. A mug, white porcelain with angel wings, sat off to one side.

Next to it was an open book with a ribbon for a bookmark.

A chair had been pulled out as if someone had been sitting there, curling their hands around the mug to feel its warmth.

Wisps of steam rose from hot, dark liquid within.

As I fixated on the objects on the table, I heard the creaking of door hinges that badly needed grease. The door between the kitchen and backyard swung open, then shut again. There weren’t any curtains on the window, so I could clearly see the empty deck.

I slowly backed away.

Then I picked up my shoes and ran out of the house, slamming the door, not bothering to lock it.

Shit.

The house was haunted.