Chapter 26
I talked to Annabelle nonstop on the ride back to Abaddon.
She shivered constantly, shaking in my arms. I talked about the houses we passed and the weather, babbling.
The words I said were completely irrelevant to our situation, but I felt like if I stopped talking, none of this would be real.
Behind us, the Just Married sign flapped against the back of the carriage.
Sage stood up on their bike pedals and pumped their feet furiously to keep up.
Mike expertly positioned the carriage next to Abaddon’s front gate, talking softly to the horses from his position in the driver’s seat.
“Here we are,” he said.
Yasmin stood on the porch, peering out into the not-quite-darkness of the night.
The eclipse hadn’t started yet, the moon still rising.
She ran to the carriage and started to scold me for leaving, with fire in her eyes and furious words halfway out of her mouth.
But she stopped when she saw Annabelle in the backseat.
“Oh my god, Annabelle.” The fear in her expression turned instantly to worry. Yasmin opened the gate and shouted back at the house, “They’re here! Bring us as many towels as you can find.”
Mike helped me lift Annabelle down to the ground, dripping wet and wearing a long nightgown that restricted her movement.
Yasmin held her arm while I climbed out of the carriage as well, my jeans wet and sticking to my legs.
My arms felt empty without her, and I finally felt the cold, my body convulsing in a sudden shiver.
Sage arrived and slid off their bike, leaning it against the fence.
“Take her other side, please,” Mike said to Sage. He glanced at the giant carriage horses, who were patiently waiting for instruction. “I need to—”
“I got it.” Sage helped Yasmin walk Annabelle to the house, supporting her weight and guiding her down the path through the front yard.
“Mike ...” I turned to him, still shaking, overcome with gratitude. His fancy suit jacket and shoes were wet, and we’d dripped lake water all over the back of his fanciest carriage. “I don’t know how to—”
“I don’t really get what’s happening in this house.
Like, at all.” He looked at the path that led to Abaddon and shook his head.
“But Sage adores you. Adam, too. Whatever this is, just don’t let them get attached and then take it away from them.
” He nodded to the horses. “I need to take Britney Spurs and Eddie Van Horsen back to the stables. Good luck with your ghost. Or, whatever she is now.”
I nodded, a lump forming in my throat.
***
When I stepped in the foyer, Annabelle had been covered in blankets from the house, some I’d never seen before.
She was holding a steaming mug of tea. Everyone was talking at her while she stared blankly at the liquid as if she hadn’t realized she could drink it now.
Water dripped on the tile entryway as a puddle formed around her bare feet.
“Let’s get you dried off, dear.” Miranda gently used a towel to pat her hair, twisting water out of the damp strands. Annabelle started shaking hard enough to make the tea slosh out of the mug, joining the pool of lake water on the tile.
I followed as Miranda and Yasmin slowly led Annabelle up the stairs. Without asking, they took her up to the third floor. When I made it to the landing of the second floor, Sage put a hand on my elbow, holding me back. They pressed a clean towel into my hands and said, “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” I mustered a smile. “Thanks for all your help, Sage.”
They nodded.
I continued up the stairs, not at all sure I was okay, but knowing I had to be, for Annabelle.
What if she regretted coming back? What did we do?
Once she made it up to the third floor and into the bath, Annabelle seemed to slowly come awake.
She sat on the edge of the claw-foot tub while Miranda rubbed her feet with towels and Yasmin brushed her hair.
They said reassuring things, fussing over Annabelle and acting like she was having a day at the spa instead of coming back from a near-drowning.
“There you go, dear,” Miranda said, “we’ll run you a nice bath, and Gibson will take care of you.
Then we’ll check on you in the morning.” Her voice was calm and soft.
I remembered thinking it was cloying when I first arrived, before I built a tolerance to the aggressive kindness of the people here.
“Okay,” Annabelle said, staring at me as if she only now realized I was there. She looked a little like a wet cat. A sad ghost sitting on the edge of a claw-foot tub in the house she used to haunt.
Miranda started the bath and left, patting my back as she went.
“Will you two be okay?” Yasmin asked, wringing her hands. “I didn’t—I’m sorry, I—”
“We’ll be fine, cuz,” I said. “Thanks.”
“I’ll be right downstairs.” Yasmin left as well, leaving me and Annabelle alone.
I checked the running water and turned on the cold water tap to bring down the temperature.
“Don’t want to warm you up too quickly,” I said, finding the silence between us much too loud. “I remember that from ... something or other.”
“Yes, dear.” A ghost of a smile played at her lips, which had finally returned to a normal human color.
“Let’s, uh, get you out of these clothes.” I didn’t move to help her out of the nightgown, and she hadn’t moved from her seat on the edge of the tub.
All of this was wrong. I’d imagined her without clothes many times. But in my mind, I undid the buttons on her shirt slowly while kissing her neck. Or I ripped the shirt open, laughing as she fussed over the damage.
“Marley? Clothes?”
She started, seeming to come out of a daze. Annabelle looked down at her body and frowned. “This won’t do,” she murmured, more to herself than me. It was a start.
I turned away while she undressed. When I heard her stand and step into the water, I gathered her soaked nightgown and put it in the sink to deal with later.
Knowing Annabelle’s love of warmth and comfort, I expected her to sigh as she sank into the warm embrace of the tub, but she didn’t.
She sat curled into herself, pulling her knees to her chest.
“I’ll, um, leave you to it, then,” I said, backing away. I didn’t want to take my eyes off her, afraid she’d disappear again. “There’s soap, and, uh, shampoo and everything if you ...”
Annabelle held her knees and stared at the faucet. She nodded once.
“I’m not going to close the door.” Sinking to the floor on the other side of the bathroom, I said, “I’m right here if you need me, Marley.”
As I told her I was there for her, I wondered if she was really here or if this was an echo of her—a shell of the ghost I’d come to know and love.
I sucked in a few breaths and waited to feel a sense of relief. I had gotten what I wanted. Relief didn’t come.
On the other side, Annabelle was quiet. Every once in a while, she stirred, the water in the tub sloshing around her. I couldn’t stand the thought of her alone in the water—again—but I didn’t want to crowd her.
I should’ve known this would go wrong.
But how could we have known? I trusted Yasmin to do the ritual according to the instructions written by Agatha and the other women in my family, trusting that Agatha wouldn’t have set all this up only to harm Annabelle and her successors.
But that didn’t change the fact that I’d been so excited to have her return that I hadn’t stopped to consider the consequences.
I knew she had drowned, had seen her with my own eyes on the water, and yet I let Yasmin bring her back to life exactly as she had been when she died—in the depths of Lake Huron.
Closing my eyes, I rested my head against the wall.
Annabelle knew this would happen and she’d gone ahead with the ritual anyway. My chest felt too full, like there was a storm in my ribcage I couldn’t calm.
Unable to bear the silence, I started singing the first song that popped into my head.
After the second verse of “I’m a Believer,” my voice stopped shaking.
On the next chorus, I heard a splashing, then Annabelle joined in, her voice raspy and quiet.
We finished the song together, and I wiped the tears from my eyes.
“Okay in there?” I asked.
“Yes, I’m ...” She almost sounded like her usual self. Another splash. “I’m okay. It was very cold. In the lake. I didn’t know if I could keep going.”
I wished I could see her face. But if talking about it from the other side of a wall was easier for her, I would do that.
“The first time, I struggled, too, even though I was there because I ... But I let go.”
The breath I pulled in was sharp, the sadness I felt for her like a knife in my chest.
“This time I thought, ‘Gibson is waiting. She’ll find me. And she’ll be worried. If I don’t keep kicking, she might try to boil water for tea and burn down the house and what good will that do anyone?’ It doesn’t make sense, but that’s what I thought.”
“Marley—”
“I kicked and kicked and—I lost my shoes. Maybe I never had them? I don’t remember.”
Unable to stay on the other side of the wall, I scrambled to my feet and rushed to her. Annabelle wasn’t crying, but I was. She turned her face to me, and I held it in my hands, feeling her soft skin and never, ever wanting to let her go.
“I’m here,” I whispered. “I’m here.”
She took a deep breath, her whole body expanding with it, then smiled a giant, brilliant smile. “I’m really back.”
I returned her smile, then sat back on my heels. My drying jeans were chafing against my thighs. “You can use my toothbrush if you want,” I said, not sure why that was what came out of my mouth.
She laughed. “I think I’ll pass.”
I handed her a towel and turned away again as she stepped out of the tub.
“I’ll try the paste, though.”
“You got it. I’ll, uh, get us some clothes.” I moved her soggy nightgown from the sink, tossing it on the floor, and left her standing, wearing only a towel.