“She didn’t tell you why?”

“Not a word. We came to work one day, and she was gone.” He finishes drying the bowl and sets it in the cabinet, right where it belongs. “Billy had something of a crush on her, so he was real hurt she never even said goodbye.”

“Did she ever mention anything, um, odd about the house?”

“Odd?”

“Like sounds or smells she couldn’t explain. Or other things.”

“What other things?”

“A feeling that someone was…watching her.”

He turns to look at me. I’m grateful that at least he takes the time to actually consider my question. “Well, she did ask us about curtains,” he finally says.

“What curtains?”

“She wanted us to hang curtains in her bedroom, to keep anyone from looking in the window. I pointed out that her bedroom faces the sea, and there’s no one out there to see her, but she insisted I talk to the owner about it. A week later, she left town. We never did hang those curtains.”

I feel a chill ripple across my skin. So Charlotte felt it too, the sensation that she was not alone in this house, that she was being watched. But curtains cannot shut out the gaze of someone who’s already dead.

After Ned heads upstairs to the turret, I collapse into a chair at the kitchen table and sit rubbing my head, trying to massage away the memory of last night. When considered in the light of day, it could only have been a dream. Of course it was a dream, because the alternative is impossible: that a long-dead man tried to make love to me.

    No, I can’t call it that. What happened last night was not love but a taking, a claiming. Even though it frightened me, I ache for more. I know what you deserve, he’d said. Somehow he knows my secret, the source of my shame. He knows because he watches me.

Is he watching me even now?

I sit up straight and nervously scan the kitchen. Of course there’s no one else here. Just as there was no one in my bedroom last night except for the phantom I’ve conjured from my own loneliness. A ghost, after all, is every woman’s perfect lover. I don’t need to charm or amuse him, or worry that I’m too old or too fat or too plain. He won’t crowd my bed at night or leave his shoes and socks strewn around the room. He materializes when I need to be loved, the way I want to be loved, and in the morning he conveniently vanishes into thin air. I never need to cook him breakfast.

My laughter has the shrill note of insanity. Either I’m going crazy or my house really is haunted.

I don’t know whom to talk to or confide in. In desperation I open my laptop computer. The last document I typed is still on the screen, a list of ingredients for the next recipe: Whole cream, knobs of butter, shucked oysters combined in a rich stew that would have simmered on cast-iron stoves all along the New England coast. I close the file, open a search engine. What the hell should I search for? Local psychiatrists?

Instead I type: Is my house haunted?

To my surprise, the screen fills with a list of websites. I click on the first link.

Many people believe their house is haunted, but in the vast majority of cases, there are logical explanations for what they are experiencing. Some of the phenomena people describe include:

Pets behaving oddly.

Strange noises (footsteps, creaks) when no one else is in the house.

Objects vanishing and reappearing in a different place.

A feeling of being watched…

I stop and glance around the kitchen again, thinking of what he’d said last night. Someone must watch over you. As for pets behaving oddly, Hannibal is so focused on scarfing down his lunch, he doesn’t once look up from his bowl. Perfectly usual behavior for Mr. Fatty.

I scroll down to the next page on the website.

The appearance of vaguely human forms or moving shadows.

Feeling of being touched.

Muffled voices.

Unexplained smells that come and go.

I stare at those last four signs of haunting. Dear god, I’ve experienced all of these. Not merely touches or muffled voices. I have felt his weight on top of me. I can still feel his mouth on mine. I take a deep breath to calm myself. There are multiple websites devoted to this, so I am not the only one with this problem. How many others have frantically searched the Internet for answers? How many of them wondered if they were going insane?

I focus once again on my laptop screen.

What to do if you think your house is haunted.

Observe and document every unusual occurrence. Record the time and location of the phenomena.

Record video of any physical or auditory occurrences. Keep a cellphone nearby at all times.

Call an expert for advice.

    An expert. Where the hell do I find one of those? “Who ya gonna call?” I say aloud and my laughter sounds unhinged.

I return to the search engine and type: Maine ghost investigations.

A fresh page with website links appears. Most of the sites are devoted to tales of haunted houses, and it seems Maine has generated scores of such stories, some of which made it onto television shows. Ghosts in inns, ghosts on highways, ghosts in movie theaters. I scroll down the list, my skepticism growing. Rather than true hauntings, these look like mere myths, meant to be told around campfires. The hitchhiking woman in white. The man in the stovepipe hat. I scroll down the page and am almost ready to close it when the link at the bottom catches my eye.

Help for the Haunted. Professional Ghost Investigations, Maine.

I click on the link. The website is sparse, only a brief statement of purpose:

We investigate and document paranormal activity in the state of Maine. We also serve as an informational clearinghouse and we provide emotional and logistical support to those who are dealing with paranormal phenomena.

There is a contact form, but no phone number.

I type in my name and phone number. In the space for Reason for contacting us I type: I believe my house is haunted. I don’t know what to do about it, and hit send.

It flits off into the ether and almost immediately I feel ridiculous. Did I really just contact a ghost hunter? I think of what my ever-logical sister, Lucy, would say about this. Lucy, whose medical career is rooted in science. I need her advice now more than ever, but I don’t dare call her. I’m afraid of what she’ll say to me, and even more afraid of what I’ll say to her. I won’t call my longtime friend and editor Simon either, because he’ll certainly laugh at me and tell me I’ve gone round the bend. And then remind me how late my manuscript is.

    Desperate to distract myself, I scrape the remaining beef stew into a bowl and carry it to the refrigerator. I yank open the door and focus on the bottle of sauvignon blanc gleaming inside. It’s so tempting I can already taste its cold, crisp bite of alcohol. The bottle calls to me so seductively I almost miss the chime of the email landing in my in-box.

I turn to the laptop. The email is from an unfamiliar account, but I open it anyway.

    FROM: MAEVE CERRIDWYN

RE: YOUR HAUNTING.

WHEN WOULD YOU LIKE TO MEET?

Nine

It’s a two-hour drive from Tucker Cove to the town of Tranquility, where the ghost hunter lives. According to the map it’s only fifty-five miles as the crow flies, but that old Maine saying You can’t get there from here has never seemed so apt as I navigate from back road to back road, slowly making my way inland from the coast. I drive past abandoned farmhouses with collapsing barns, past long-fallow fields invaded by saplings, into woodlands where trees crowd out all sunlight. My GPS directs me down roads that seem to lead nowhere, but I obey the annoying voice issuing from the speaker because I have no idea where I am. It has been miles since I’ve seen another car, and I begin to wonder if I’ve been going in circles; everywhere I look I see only trees and every bend in the road looks identical.

Then I spot the roadside mailbox with a pale blue butterfly painted on the side: #41. I’ve arrived at the right place.

I bounce up the dirt driveway, and the woods part to reveal Maeve Cerridwyn’s home. I had imagined a ghost hunter’s house to be dark and ominous, but this cottage in the woods looks like a home where you’d find seven charming dwarves. When I step out of my car, I hear tinkling wind chimes. Behind the house is a stand of birch trees, their white trunks like ghostly sentinels of the forest. In the sunny patch of front yard, an herb garden blooms with sage and catmint.

    I follow the fieldstone path through the garden, where I recognize my usual culinary friends: thyme and rosemary, parsley and tarragon, sage and oregano. But there are other herbs here that I do not recognize, and in this magical woodland spot I can’t help wondering what mysterious uses they might have. For love potions, perhaps, or the warding off of demons? I bend down to examine a vine with blackberries and tiny purple flowers.