“When you are ready,” he whispers, “I will be here.”

I open my eyes, and he is gone.

I stand alone in my room, shaking, my legs unsteady. My breast tingles, the nipple still tender from his assault. I am wet, so wet with desire that I feel moisture trickle down my thigh. My body aches to be filled, to be claimed, but he has abandoned me.

Or was he ever really here?

Eleven

The next morning, I awaken with a fever.

The sun has already burned away the mist and birds are chirping outside, but the soft sea air that wafts in through the open window feels like an arctic blast. Chilled and shivering, I stumble out of bed to close the window and then crawl back under the bedcovers. I don’t want to get up. I don’t want to eat. I just want to stop shaking. I curl up into a ball and sink into a deep, exhausted sleep.

All day I stay in bed, rising only to use the toilet or take sips of water. My head pounds and sunlight hurts my eyes so I pull the covers over my head.

I barely hear the voice calling my name. A woman’s voice.

When I peel back the comforter, I see that daylight has faded and the room is deep in shadow. I lie half awake, wondering if someone really was calling to me, or if I’d merely dreamt it. And how is it possible I’ve slept all day? Why didn’t Hannibal claw me awake, demanding his breakfast?

    Through aching eyes, I scan the room, but my cat is nowhere to be seen, and the bedroom door is wide open.

Someone pounds on the door downstairs, and again I hear my name. So it wasn’t a dream after all.

I don’t really want to drag myself out of bed, but whoever’s knocking on the door sounds like she is not giving up. I pull on a robe and wobble out of the room to the stairs. Twilight has darkened the house and I feel my way down the steps, holding on to the banister as I descend. When I reach the foyer, I’m startled to see that the front door is open and my visitor stands silhouetted in the doorway, backlit by car headlights.

I fumble for the wall switch and when I flip it on, the foyer lights are so bright they hurt my eyes. Still dazed, I need a moment to retrieve her name from my memory, even though it was only yesterday when I spoke to her, yesterday when I visited her house.

“Maeve?” I finally manage to say.

“I tried calling you. When you didn’t answer the phone, I thought I’d drive up here anyway, just to take a look at the house. I found your front door wide open.” She frowns at me. “Are you all right?”

A wave of dizziness sends me reeling and I grab the banister. The room sways and Maeve’s face goes out of focus. Suddenly the floor falls away and I’m tumbling, tumbling into the abyss.

I hear Maeve cry out: “Ava!”

And then I don’t hear anything at all.

* * *

—

I don’t know how I ended up on the parlor sofa, but that’s where I now find myself lying. Someone has lit a fire and flames dance in the hearth, a cheery illusion of warmth which has not yet penetrated the blankets now shrouding me.

“Your blood pressure is up to ninety over sixty. That’s much better now. I think you were just dehydrated and that’s why you blacked out.”

    Dr. Ben Gordon removes the cuff and the Velcro gives a loud crackle as it peels away from my arm. It’s a rare doctor who makes house calls these days, but maybe that’s how life still is in small towns like Tucker Cove. It took only a phone call from Maeve, and twenty minutes later, Ben Gordon walked into my house with his black bag and a look of concern.

“She was already conscious by the time I called you,” Maeve says. “And she absolutely refused to go anywhere by ambulance.”

“Because I fainted, that’s all it was,” I tell him. “I’ve been lying in bed all day and I haven’t had anything to eat.”

Dr. Gordon turns to Maeve. “Could you bring her another glass of orange juice? Let’s fill up her tank.”

“Coming right up,” says Maeve and she heads to the kitchen.

“Such a lot of fuss.” I sigh. “I’m feeling much better now.”

“You didn’t look very good when I arrived. I was ready to send you to the ER.”

“For what, the flu?”

“It could be the flu. Or it could be something else.” He peels back the blankets to examine me and immediately focuses on my right arm. “What happened here? How did you get these?”

I look at the series of tiny blisters that track across my skin. “That’s nothing. It was just a scratch.”

“I noticed your cat. A really big cat. He was sitting on the porch.”

“Yes. His name’s Hannibal.”

“Named after Hannibal who crossed the Alps?”

“No, Hannibal Lecter, the serial killer. If you knew my cat, you’d understand how he got the name.”

“And when did your serial killer cat scratch you?”

“About a week ago, I think. It doesn’t hurt. It’s just a little itchy.”

He extends my arm and leans in to examine me, his fingers probing my armpit. There is something deeply intimate about the way his head is bent so close to mine. He smells like laundry soap and wood smoke and I notice strands of silver mingled in his brown hair. He has gentle hands, warm hands, and all at once I’m painfully aware that under my nightgown, I’m wearing nothing at all.

    “Your axillary lymph nodes are enlarged,” he says, frowning.

“What does that mean?”

“Let me examine the other side.” As he reaches out to examine my other armpit, he brushes across my breast and my nipple tingles, tightens. I’m forced to look away so he can’t see that my face is flushed.

“I don’t feel any enlarged nodes on this side, which is good,” he says. “I’m pretty sure I know what the problem—”

A loud crash startles us. We both stare at the shattered remains of a vase lying on the floor. A vase that a moment earlier was perched on the mantelpiece.

“I swear I didn’t touch it!” says Maeve, who’s just returned to the parlor with a glass of orange juice. She frowns at the shards of glass. “How on earth did that fall off?”

“Things don’t just fly off shelves on their own,” says Dr. Gordon.

“No.” Maeve looks at me with a strange expression and says quietly: “They don’t.”

“It must have been right on the edge,” he offers, an explanation that sounds perfectly logical. “Some vibration finally tipped it over.”

I can’t help glancing around the room, searching for an invisible culprit. I know that Maeve is thinking the same thing I am: The ghost did it. But I would never say that to Dr. Gordon, man of science. Already he’s resumed examining me. He palpates my neck, listens to my heart, and probes my belly.

“Your spleen feels perfectly normal.” He covers me with the blanket and sits up straight. “I think I know what the problem is. This is a classic case of Bartonellosis. A bacterial infection.”

    “Oh my god, that sounds serious,” says Maeve. “Can we catch it, too?”

“Only if you own a cat.” He looks at me. “It’s also called cat scratch disease. It’s usually not serious, but it can lead to fevers and swollen lymph nodes. And in rare cases, encephalopathy.”

“It can affect the brain?” I ask.

“Yes, but you seem alert and oriented. And certainly not delusional.” He smiles. “I’ll go out on a limb here and pronounce you sane.”

Something he might not say if he knew what I experienced last night. I feel Maeve studying me. Does she wonder, as I’m wondering now, if my visions of Captain Brodie were nothing more than the product of a fevered mind?

Dr. Gordon reaches into his black bag. “The drug companies always leave me plenty of free samples and I think I have some azithromycin in here.” He digs out a blister pack of pills. “You’re not allergic to any medicines are you?”

“No.”

“Then this antibiotic should do the trick. Follow the instructions on the packet until all the pills are gone. Come into my office next week, so I can recheck those lymph nodes. I’ll have my receptionist call you and book the appointment.” He snaps his black bag shut and looks me up and down. “Eat something, Ava. I think that’s also why you’re feeling weak. Plus, you could use a few extra pounds.”

As he walks out of the house, Maeve and I are silent. We hear the front door close and then Hannibal struts into the room, looking completely innocent as he sits by the fireplace, calmly licking his paw. The cat who started all this trouble.

“Wish my doctor looked like him,” says Maeve.

“How did you happen to call Dr. Gordon?”

“His name was on the list by the kitchen phone. Numbers for the plumber, doctor, and electrician. I just assumed he was your doctor.”

    “Oh, that list. It was left by the previous tenant.” Dr. Gordon, it seems, is a popular choice in town.