This is the house where I should have died, but instead learned to live again.

After the last photo is snapped, and the gear is packed up and carried downstairs, I linger alone in the turret, waiting for one last ghostly whisper, one last whiff of the sea. I hear no ghostly voice. I see no dark-haired sea captain. Whatever once bound me to this house has since vanished.

    In the driveway, we say our goodbyes to Rebecca, and I promise her an autographed copy of The Captain’s Table. “Thank you for opening your house to us,” I tell her. “I’m so glad Brodie’s Watch has finally found someone to love it.”

“We do love it.” She squeezes my hand. “And it loves us, too.”

For a moment we stand looking at each other, and I remember Jeremiah Brodie’s words, spoken so softly to me in the darkness.

Here in my house, what you seek is what you will find.

As we drive away, Rebecca waves goodbye to us from her front porch. I lean out the window to wave back and suddenly I glimpse something up on the widow’s walk high above, something that, just for an instant, looks like a figure in a long black coat.

But when I blink, he is gone. Perhaps he was never there. All I see now is sunlight gleaming on slate and one solitary gull, soaring across the cloudless summer sky.

TO CLARA

Acknowledgments

Writing a book is a lonely journey, but the road to publication is not, and I’m grateful for the superb team that guides me every step of the way. My literary agent Meg Ruley of the Jane Rotrosen Agency has been my fiercest advocate, the kind of agent every writer dreams of finding. Thank you, Meg, for over two decades of being my advisor, my champion, and my friend. A huge thanks to my Ballantine (US) team: Kara Cesare, Kim Hovey, and Sharon Propson, and to my Transworld (UK) team: Sarah Adams, Larry Finlay, and Alison Barrow.

Most of all, thanks to the one person who’s been with me on this adventure from the very beginning: my husband, Jacob.