Chapter 7 #2
“I didn’t know it would be so beautiful,” she said.
“It’s ... certainly something.” I stood in the doorway awkwardly. “Get some rest, and we’ll talk in the morning.”
Yasmin nodded. “Thank you.”
I patted the doorframe and then went downstairs but couldn’t concentrate.
The papers Yasmin brought seemed legit. It certainly looked like she was who she said she was.
I sent an SOS email to my lawyer and then decided to go for an evening walk.
Annabelle still wasn’t around. I closed and locked the door behind me.
I tried to keep my mind blank as I wandered the island.
It was too late to walk all the way to the fort.
I had little interest in paying admission to see an old castle built by people who claimed this island by squatting on it and kicking everyone else out.
The gazebo seemed too cheesy, and the fancy-schmancy Grand Hotel probably wouldn’t let me in because I wouldn’t adhere to the dress code.
Instead, I wandered the path that circled the island.
I tried not to think of Dr. Johnson casually kissing her wife on the cheek yesterday like it was the easiest thing in the world.
I tried not to think of the dead woman or the unwanted family waiting for me to return to Abaddon.
But somehow, the people I had waiting for me back home in New York kept slipping away, their faces receding, replaced by thoughts of houses and relatives and ghosts.
Darkness surrounded me, but I didn’t go back to Abaddon Cottage.
I walked along the island’s perimeter path, with no particular destination in mind.
The pavement curved, hugging the limestone rock formations closely.
Every now and then, a cyclist whooshed by.
As the pink dusk became twilight, then dark, cyclists stopped coming.
On the other side of the path, the still lake waters were pitch black.
The edge of the path could’ve been a cliff dropping into an endless void.
Ahead of me and around a bend, there was a small pocket of rocky beach.
Inky water crept up to meet shiny dark stones that glistened with slick foam.
A thin line of vegetation was all that separated the path where I walked from the small beach made of slippery stones.
A feeling of dread came over me as I approached the little cove, but I wasn’t sure why.
I told myself I was done with the spooky stuff. Time to deal with actual problems instead of imaginary ones.
Jamming my hands in my pockets, I kept walking. The silence of the island was broken only by the whisper of water lapping at the rocks, endlessly grabbing at them like hands seeking something to hold on to.
I kept walking, feeling unsettled and angry for reasons I had a hard time pinpointing. I almost didn’t recognize Annabelle standing on the rocks.
“Marley? What are you doing out here?”
She turned to face me slowly. Her feet were visible—white and bare on the jagged stones.
I was reminded of clouds but wasn’t sure why.
She was wearing a long nightgown, the sort you might see on a BBC show.
But the wind blew it across her figure, making the thin fabric hug her curves.
Annabelle’s body was solid, more solid than I’d ever seen her before.
She also seemed to shine brightly from within, like a halo of light covering her entire body.
As she turned to face me, her body and shoulders moved separately—like they’d been disconnected at the neck.
I sped up, but she was still a good fifty feet ahead of me on the rocks.
There was something wrong with Annabelle’s eyes. They were too wide and too white.
“Marley!” I reached out, trying not to trip over my own suddenly-too-big feet.
Annabelle’s ghostly body was still, but she raised an arm stiffly, struggling under the weight of it.
She was dripping wet. Water streamed down her face from drooping tendrils of hair.
Instead of its usual white-blonde, in the strange light her hair was a dark, mottled gray.
A gash of moonlight ripped through dark clouds and threw strange shadows on her ghastly, beautiful face.
“Marley, I’m—” I wasn’t sure what the end of that sentence would be. My walk turned into a jog as I sped up to reach her. I thought she couldn’t leave the house?
Annabelle opened her mouth as if to reply, but when her lips parted, a dark gush of black water streamed down her chin. Her eyes were wide in horror as inky liquid and seaweed spilled from the gaping maw of her mouth.
I broke into a run.
My footsteps slapped loudly against the pavement. But when I reached the rocks, Annabelle had vanished.
***
Abaddon Cottage was dark.
“Annabelle?”
Nothing.
“Yasmin?”
No response. Only silence and the creaking of a front door I would need to grease. I stepped into the hall, not carrying anything but conscious of my hands, like a sense memory of everything I’d dropped onto this very floor, including myself.
“Marley? Are you here?”
Silence.
I sniffed the air, searching for a hint of her presence: freshly brewed tea; the smell of old books; the bright, fishy tang that followed her from room to room. But there was nothing.
Telling myself I wasn’t searching for her but making sure the doors were locked, I went through every room on the main floor.
The mugs in the sink were the same ones we’d used this morning.
One with my coffee stains, one with remnants of Annabelle’s unconsumed tea.
I went out to the backyard and peered into the garden, softly calling “Marley?” and feeling like an idiot. The bushes didn’t reply.
I told myself I wasn’t disappointed. I also told myself I wasn’t scared.
Listening at the door to the room Yasmin had taken, I was relieved to hear the soft sound of snoring from within.
Running up the rest of the stairs to my room, I closed the door gently and locked it.
I tore off my clothes and threw myself down on the bed while my heart hammered.
My body was taut, rigid with shock. With no sign of the ghost in the house and a growing sense of panic, I found myself staring at the ceiling, breathing hard.
The house had become terrifying again now that the ghost who haunted it was gone.
What the fuck? What the actual fuck was that? And where is she now?
Willing myself to calm down, I tried to sleep, but my thoughts kept turning strange.
Annabelle’s frightful face kept appearing behind my eyelids.
Then the contour of her body as her thin nightgown whipped in the wind.
As I wrestled with my mind, fear morphed into a forbidden sense of desire.
The sheets were rough, but every time I moved, I felt them against my skin and it drove me just a little mad.
I needed to feel something other than unsettling, bone-deep dread.
My fingers moved south and I took a deep breath in, trying to focus, when I sensed her. She smelled like lake water and tea. I opened my eyes. The room was empty.
But I wasn’t alone.
“I know you’re there,” I whispered.
Silence.
I arched my back, pressing into my fingers as I chased relief. The slick, wet sound was lewd in the silence of the room, but I didn’t stop.
A light flickered from the corner. I looked over at the antique wooden chair, covered with a threadbare quilt full of homespun yarn and memories.
On it sat Annabelle, with her ankles crossed behind a chair leg, wearing her house slippers.
Her hands clenched on her thighs, knuckles white.
Her mouth was set in a line, flat as the horizon.
There was no smile for her to hide behind.
She met my gaze. Her expression smoldered with an intensity I’d never seen before.
The heavy atmosphere of the room was silent but for my leaping heart and the sound of my movements.
My pulse thundered in my ears. I sped up, gasping as I came closer.
The sheets grabbed at my skin as I writhed on them, but I didn’t look away from Annabelle’s intense scrutiny.
Finally, I came, feeling waves of blissful release. I must have closed my eyes because when I returned to my senses, the chair in the corner of the room was empty.