My Sweet Annie

47

When I emerged from the bathroom in a cloud of steam some time later, I was exhausted. Even the journey up the stairs to bed seemed like too much to manage. I had barely mustered the energy to brush my teeth.

The dining room was empty, although Ana's phone was on the table next to Gran's. I padded toward the living room, expecting to see Anabel curled up with Porkie and her cup of tea, but she wasn't there and neither was the dog.

They weren't in the kitchen either. I stopped there to plug my phone in where Gran's had charged earlier.

"Ana?" I called up the stairs. "Did you want me to bring your phone up?"

No response.

"Anabel?" I called again, my voice already tight with unease. "Your phone's on the table—I'm gonna bring it up for you, okay?"

Silence.

I stared up the stairs into the darkness of the upper landing, the nape of my neck prickling. I backed away from the stairwell into the dining room. Ana's phone was still here, so obviously, she hadn't left, but I went to peek out into the driveway anyway, pulling aside the sheers on either side of Gran's front door. Her car was indeed still there.

Then I remembered that Porkie was not trotting along behind me, and I relaxed a little. Ana had probably just taken the dog outside to pee.

"You're losing your mind, Tab," I muttered, slipping my feet into Gran's rubber garden boots. They were a size too small for me, but better than my flip flops to wander through night-dampened grass. I opened the front door and stepped out onto the porch. "Then again, you have seen ghosts, so maybe be patient with yourself."

I folded my arms to ward against the chill of the early June night as I walked across the porch. I peered through the darkness, looking for Ana's silhouette, but I didn't see her.

Again, unease began to seep into my awareness, like ink blooming on damp paper. I went down the steps onto the gravel driveway, then edged to the left into the grass, scanning the yard.

She wasn't here. I flashed back to Mark, the silent yard, his empty truck, his body by the pond.

Panic knocked the sense out of me. "Ana?" I called, already running. "Ana! Ana!"

I tore gracelessly across the yard toward the pond, my damp hair slapping against my cheeks, my heavy boots clomping over the ground, and I gave a wordless cry of relief when I saw her on the edge of the tree line, a pale figure blurred in the darkness.

"Ana!" I gasped, stopping where the ground began to slope down toward the pond. "You scared the hell out of—"

"Tabitha!"

A voice from behind me.

From behind me.

I turned, my blood running cold, and saw Ana jogging toward me over the grass, Porkie trundling at her heels. "What are you doing? Where are you going?" she demanded.

For a moment, I stared at them, startled, confused.

I turned back around, my heart in my throat.

The woman's figure was nowhere to be seen.

"It was her," I breathed.

Ana caught up with me a second later, taking my arm. "What's going on?"

"I saw her. I saw Annie." I turned to Anabel, grasping her arm. "She thought I was calling for her when I was shouting your name."

Anabel's expression crumpled with unease. "Okay, no—"

"We need to talk to her."

"What?"

"I just need a flashlight. Gran said—I mean, Royal said that he buried her in the woods. Her body's out there. She can show us where it is!"

"Tabitha, you're freaking me out right now."

I shook off Anabel's arm and started back toward the house. "She'll help us. She's been trying to communicate with us all along. From the first day I got here, she's been trying to speak to me, and I just didn't know how to listen."

Ana jogged to catch up with me. "Listen, no. Absolutely not. If you want to try talking to ghosts in the daytime, that's fine—not fine, but I can deal with it—but there is no way in hell that I am going to let you have some kind of impromptu seance out here in the middle of the night!"

We'd made it nearly to the house. I pivoted to look at Anabel in the pool of light from the porch. "I have to—"

"You have to nothing. Every inch of my Latina soul is on red alert right now, babe. There is no way. No way! You are not following a ghost into the woods at night."

I opened my mouth to respond, but the sound of tires on gravel drew my attention. Headlights had appeared as a large, low sedan trundled down the road. I assumed the car would move right on by, but it actually turned into the driveway.

Which was strange, because it had to be near midnight now.

Anabel and I exchanged a look, stepping closer to one another. She snatched my hand, grasping it tight. Porkie took off toward the car with the confidence of a dog ten times her size, bellowing her disapproval.

The car stopped, and the engine cut off.

"Do you know who that is?" Ana asked.

I shook my head; the car was completely unfamiliar. All I could tell was that it had Iowa plates. No surprise.

But as the driver opened the door, the cab lights came on, illuminating a figure in a yellow glow, and then I knew who it was.

It was my uncle Royal.