“You know what Shirley said to me? She told me Lexie’s out there in the pool.”

Diane shook her head. “Your father’s cooking for her, and Shirley thinks she’s gone for a swim.” She was quiet a minute, then said, “Do you know what I think? I think you should leave your sister’s journals and all those papers and albums she found, right in the boxes we put them in. Put some tape around them so you’re not tempted to keep digging through them. I don’t think it’s good for you, for any of us right now. They’re a record of your sister’s illness. It’s too soon, too heartbreaking.”

“But they’re a record of her life, too. Of who she was.”

Diane shook her head, bit her lip. “The best thing to do is seal it all up. Go back home, get away from all of this, and clear your head.”

I opened my mouth to argue, to tell Diane that I couldn’t do that.

Diane watched me carefully. “Jackie, you shouldn’t make any big decisions right now; you’re not thinking of staying, of moving to Sparrow Crest, are you? Not that I wouldn’t love to have you living close by, but I just don’t think it’s the best idea. I don’t think you should be here, in this house.”

She seemed almost frightened by the idea.

“Diane, did you ever see anything… weird… in the pool?”

She clenched her jaw and shook her head. “Of course not. It’s just that this is where your sister died. And I know you blame yourself—you shouldn’t, but you do, and to tell the truth, I blame myself, too, it’s hard not to—and all this ancient history, these scribblings from poor Lexie at her worst…”

“It’s the place she lived, too. And for better or worse, she loved this house and the pool. Gram loved it, too.” I held my head high, defiant. “I don’t know what I’ll do with the house yet. I’ve got to get back home on Sunday, take care of things at work, but I’d like to plan another trip out here soon to really sort through things, try to make sense of Lexie’s papers and notes.”

Diane asked, “What is it you’re hoping to find?”

“I don’t know. I just think—”

She took my hand. “Whatever you find isn’t going to bring her back, Jackie. It isn’t going to change anything. You understand that, right?”

“Of course.”

But then I heard Shirley’s words: Go out to the pool. That’s where you’ll find her.

* * *

Diane and I said our good nights. I grabbed my father’s sketchbook and went up to my room, holding it tightly, hoping he wouldn’t come out and catch me. Although he’d opened it up for me to look at tonight, taking it was crossing a line. I closed my bedroom door quietly and sat on the bed with the unopened sketchbook. Lexie watched from the dresser. Curiosity killed the cat, she warned.

“Shut up,” I told her, opening the sketchbook.

And there she was again, looking up at me from the page. Lexie in the pool, smiling, one arm up, beckoning: Come on in. The water’s fine.

My breath caught, stuck in my lungs.

I flipped through the thick pages: Lexie in the attic, standing beside her drawing table, sitting on the edge of my father’s bed. The last few, the ones from tonight, showed her at the kitchen table, food piled in front her. I studied the pictures, a chill running through my body like a wire. He’d gotten each detail perfect: the slope of her nose, her damp hair, the tiny dimple in her left cheek that appeared when she smirked, the smattering of freckles across her cheeks. And her eyes, my God, her eyes. They stared up at me, sucking me in, daring me not to believe in her, not to believe that she’d found a way to come back. She was naked, legs crossed, elbows resting on the table. Why would Ted draw her naked? And how did he know each detail of her body—each tiny freckle and scar?

I set the sketchbook down on my bed, pulled out my phone. Still no message from Declan’s mother.

I typed Brandenburg Springs Hotel into the search engine. The first hit I got was from a blog called Nellie Explores the Haunted Places of New England. There was a photo of the burned hotel, very similar to the one Shirley had shown me, and a post beneath it.

ARE THE BRANDENBURG SPRINGS CURSED?

The tiny town of Brandenburg, Vermont, is located in the southeast corner of the state, just across the border from New Hampshire. But legends about this particular hamlet abound.

Deep in the heart of the village lay the springs, long rumored to have medicinal properties. For generations, people have flocked to the springs to drink and bathe in their water. The healing water was said to be a cure for gout, rheumatism, consumption, chronic pain of any type, and some stories say a dip in the waters will even cure the pain of heartbreak. The native people who lived in these hills long before white settlers knew the spring to be a sacred place and called it a door between the worlds. They warned that the springs should be left alone, that their powers could bring great misfortune as well as great healing.

Old legends tell of the Lady of the Springs—a woman who appears in the water, luring men and women with promises of good health and riches, then tricking them into the deepest part of the water and drowning them. In some stories, she appears as a beautiful young woman; in others, she is a child, or an old hag with green hair and clawlike hands.

The first man to try to monetize the power of the springs was Nelson DeWitt, back in 1850. He opened a boardinghouse for visitors to the springs, then bottled the water and had it shipped by train to Boston and New York, marketing it as DeWitt’s Miracle Elixir: “a sure cure for what ails you.” Only five months into his operation, DeWitt drowned in the springs. His employees claimed he’d gone mad—they’d caught him down on his knees talking to the water, pleading with it day after day.

The springs were closed, and eventually DeWitt’s heirs sold the land to Benson Harding, who owned several hotels in New York State, including one in Saratoga Springs. Harding did not believe in curses and was sure that his experience with hotels would lead to tremendous success. Construction of the hotel took six years and faced one setback after another. Trains loaded with supplies derailed, work crews quit, the foundation flooded when a pipe burst. At last, the Brandenburg Springs Hotel and Resort opened its doors in the spring of 1929.

But terrible things awaited Harding, his family, and his guests. Perhaps he should have paid heed to the legends that have long warned people away.